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Wanted— A Situation 

And Other Stories. 

BY 


ISABEL NIXON WHITELEY. 

II 


Author of The Falcon of Lang^ac, 
For the French Lilies. 






ST. LOUIS, MO. 1904. 

Published by B. HERDER, 
17 South Broadway, 


UHRaKY -af CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 


APR 1 1904 

1/1, CopyrigM &otry 
I Ito^. 0 Or 

CLASS CL, XXc. No. 

s ^ "2- 

COKY'B 


Copyright, 1904, by Joseph Giimmersbach. 


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— BECKTOLD— 

PRINTING AND BOOK MFG. CO. 
ST. LOUIS, MO. 


TO MY SISTER 
MARY F. NIXON-ROUEKT. 


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HE Story “Wanted — A Situation” is 



^ here reproduced by permission of Har- 
per’s Bazar, in which it first appeared ; ‘ ‘Her 
Novel” by permission of Short Stories) 
“In the Shadow of the Creizker”, “A Mom- 
entary Madness” and “A Box of Choco- 
lates” by permission of The Interior. 





CONTENTS. 


Page. 

1. Wanted — A Situation .... 9 

Her Novel 28 

3. Two Chorus Grirls 41 

4. Mrs. Golobiewsky’s First Good 

Time 58 

5. A Victory of Our Lady .... 75 

6. In the Shadow of the Creizker. . 91 

7. How the Phanograph Made a 

Match 107 

8. A Momentaiy Madness .... 120 

9. A Criminal Type 132 

10. Our Lady’s Roses 140 

11. A Box of Chocolates IGO 

12. Nora’s Blockade Running . . . 173 




WANTED— A SITUATION. 


Miss Helen Tracy Rush had to leave the 
pleasant house party at the Alcott’s the day 
after the dance. All the amiability and 
philosophy hidden in the recesses of her 
girlish mind were needed at this crisis. 
For had she not been imprisoned for four 
years at Wellesley amid the fatigues of 
chromatic scales, logarithms and -^reek 
roots, enlivened only by tlie tempered fri- 
volities of musicals? And had she not gone 
to the house party, hoping for a whole week 
of felicity, with a trunk full of exquisite 
feminine munitions of war? 

Now all her anticipations were untimely 
nipped by a telegram from her married sis- 
ter, who was not usually selfish, but often 
went to the opposite extreme, by supplying 
Helen, though she was not “out”, with 
premature social joys. “Going to Old 
Point today, not well. Come at 2.30 to take 
care of babies. Dinner party tonight.” 

The last sentence increased rather than 

( 9 ) 


10 


WANTED — A SITUATION. 


lessened Helen’s concern. For she was too 
young to place dinner parties at the top of 
social pleasures, and moreover, the proper 
packing of her dainty belongings would take 
some hours, and the lady’s maid was taking 
her “day out”. So Helen said firmly, 
“I shall have to take a dinner gown in a 
parcel, and have the trunk sent tomorrow.” 
A chorus of protestations followed. She 
heard them with Spai*tan firmness. “I must 
go to the babies.” 

“Hang the babies!” rudely ejaculated 
Jack Alcott, much incensed at the thought 
of Miss Rush’s departure. 

“Indeed, you’ll do no such thing!” 
indignantly rejoined Helen, who had no 
brothers, and had not learned indulgence 
for masculine frailties of tongue and temper. 
But she restored him to her smiles before 
the melancholy moment when his sister 
drove her to the railway station. 

The pony was skittish, and did not ap- 
prove of trains, so with many promises to 
“write soon, and tell all about everything,” 
Helen was left the Selkirk of the station 
platform. 

She was a pretty creature, not an ounce 


WANTED — A SITUATION. 11 

too much of a heavy-weight, though she 
would have told you she was ^‘frightfully 
stout!’’ Who wishes a charming girl of 
nineteen to be scraggy and lean as a Hindoo 
syce, with the “wind blowing through his 
bones?” She was only deliciously round 
and rosy, “hke a milkmaid,” she insisted, 
underrating her own beauty. 

But on that particular June day she felt 
a certain serenity, befitting a young woman 
with a perfect tailored gown, of the precise 
shade of delicate grey to relieve the exquisite 
tones of a skin like June roses, and the 
apple blossoms in her hat were dainty as a 
French flower study. A faint suggestion of 
violets exhaled from her garments, and a 
girlish independence was in her air. 

To her appeared, from the other end of 
the platform, a person also feminine, and 
carrying a bundle, but having no other 
apparent resemblance to Miss Helen Rush. 
Clad in a slovenly gown of dingy red, 
frayed and sodden, she trailed it heavily 
behind her, like the tail of a Cape of Good 
Hope sheep, without its cart. She wore, in 
spite of the heat, a badly cut coat of the 
light tan colour affected by her class, which 


12 


WANTED — A SITUATION. 


was trimmed with imitation fur, and oily 
globes of perspiration rolled down her pur- 
plish cheeks. She, too, had a bundle, not 
neatly tied as was that of Miss Eush, but 
bulging and untidy, like its owner. 

As the opposite poles of humanity ap- 
proached each other pacing the platform, 
the newcomer regarded attentively Miss 
Eush and her bundle, and remarked, “Yeh’e 
lavin’ too, are ye?” 

Miss Eush’s relatives always accused her 
of wanting proper pride, in that on such 
occasions her love of fun led her to see the 
adventure out, rather than to stand on her 
dignity and put people in their proper place. 

‘ ^This comes of my milkmaid’s appearance 
and my democratic carrying of bundles,” 
she thought, and her eyes scintillating with 
mirth, she replied, “Yes, I’m leaving.” 

“Well, I don’t wonder. It’s terrible lone- 
some in the country. Where was ye at?” 

“At Mrs. Alcott’s.” 

“What was ye doing there?” 

“Oh, ah, dusting and fixing up the 
rooms,” replied Helen, thinking of the 
flowers and bric-a-brac she had arranged 
before the dance. 


WANTED — A SITUATION. 


13 


‘ ‘Humph ! a very aisy place ; ye’ll not get 
another like it.” The coming train thun- 
dering up to the station arrested further 
conversation. 

Helen laughed to herself as she got on 
the train, and rather absorbed in her own 
amusement, she carelessly collided with a 
young man returning from the smoking car. 
He raised his hat with apologies, a flash of 
admiration in his frank grey eyes, and 
dropped into the seat behind her. 

In that brief glance — how do girls do it? 
— Helen had realized the fact that he was 
a very personable young man indeed. She 
thought, regretfully, “I wish I had not 
been so awkward.” 

A resonant voice smote her ear, “Sure, 
I thought I’d lost ye!” and her new ac- 
quaintance, the ex-cook, sunk with a little 
puff of satisfaction into the seat by her side. 

“The curse is come upon me!” thought 
Helen, who read poetry instead of trashy 
novels. Tints of La France roses ran from 
the blushing roundness of her cheek down 
into her white neck, till the apple-blossoms 
in her hat looked sickly in comparison. 


14 


WANTED — A SITUATION. 


Then the goddess of the ridiculous, who had 
often consoled Helen for unpleasant acci- 
dents, came to her assistance, and she 
turned benignly to the lady of the skillet, 
as to an old friend, and from the corner of 
her eye had the satisfaction of seeing the 
youth behind her reduced to stupefaction. 
Is not the young man of the present day, 
who prides himself on being surprised at 
nothing, fair game? 

“What are you goin^ to take now?’’ 
queried the cook, as she mopped her face 
with a musk-laden handkerchief. 

“Minding children.” Helen laughed du- 
biously as she thought of the merely nom- 
inal labours of presiding over three nurses 
at her sister’s luxurious nursery. 

“Sure, that’s very hard worruk. Don’t 
be after breakin’ yerself down. But ye 
look strong. What’s yer name?” 

“Helen Tracy,” said Helen, a little fright- 
ened, but enjoying the joke on herself as a 
terrier a game of ball. 

“Ellen, ye mane.” Sternly: “Don’t go 
to callin’ yerself out of yer name just be- 
cause yer in America. There’s me sister 
now. Bridget she was and is, and isn’t she 


WANTED — A SITUATION. 


15 


after callin’ herself Delia till her own mother 
wouldn’t know her. What office d’ye 
go to?” 

‘^The Pennsylvania Guaranteed Eeliable 
Domestic Employment Bureau,” answered 
Helen, rashly. 

“Well, if ye hadn’t got a place we might 
ha’ gone there together,” said the cook, 
patronizingly. “How’d ye like Alcotts? 
Was they good to ye?” 

“Very,” said Helen, smiling at the pleas- 
ant remembrance of the general goodness, 
and of Jack Alcott’s in particular. 

“Did they let ye have company?” 

“Oh, yes.” The newspaper crinkled 
violently behind, as if the youth who held 
it felt some agitation at the suggestion of 
“clumsy Jacks and Georges.” 

“Did ye ate in the kitchen?” 

“Oh, no,” said Helen, hastily. 

“Oh, there was a servant’s hall, was there? 
So there was at me last place, last but one. 
I wish I was there now,” she sighed. 

“Why did you leave it?” 

“I didn’t, the lady went and died on mo, 
and they broke up housekeepin’. I won’t 
get another like it.” 


16 


WANTED — A SITUATION. 


Retrospective grief kept her silent till 
they reached the Powelton Avenue station, 
where Miss Rush alighted with all possible 
speed. 

Mr. Penny Wood, known to the Blue 
Blood as W. Penn Wood, Jr., watched the 
retreating figure in a maze of bewilderment. 
How could so lovely a creature be a house- 
maid? If he could have yielded to his first 
impulse and followed her, and seen her 
driving her sister’s handsome trap up 
Chestnut Street, this story would never have 
been told. Dared he try to rescue that 
charming being from the possible horrors 
of “minding children” in the next place? 
But memory aided reason, and remarking 
“confound the Bank!” he settled again 
into his seat. 

It is to be hoped that his imprecation did 
not take effect, for the bank was very neces- 
sary to Mr. Penny Wood that day. He had 
been up country to the Fishing Club, and 
there had been a little poker in the evening. 

Do not be too severe upon Penny. This 
story is not the history of a subject for 
beatification, and poker was his only short- 
coming. He was too sincere a devotee of 


WANTED— A SITUATION. 


17 


cricket, golf and rowing, to hurt himself 
with drink. His mother was a Southern 
woman, and Penny had grown up with the 
old-fashioned tradition that a young man’s 
life should not be unworthy of the com- 
panionship of his sisters. 

Since Penny was to dine in New York 
that evening, it was quite necessary for him 
to get to the bank before three o’clock, so 
he was forced to see the charming house- 
maid whirled out of his ken, and he spent 
the afternoon in sensations that he could 
not analyze. The young man of our age is 
little given to self-examination, if the young 
woman is. Childe Harold has given place 
to Marie Bashkirtseff. 

Penny had seen many lovely girls before. 
He had seen them in distress, shrieking 
prettily over cows, centipedes, twisted 
ankles, everything abhorred by women. 
But he never before had seen an exquisite 
tailor-made creature, with the sweetest soft 
voice in the world, patronized by a frowsy 
old cook, and whirled off to a situation of 
dreary hardships, and north of Market 
Street. 

Across the aisle in the four o’clock train 
2 


18 


WANTED — A SITUATION. 


for New York a lusty baby pounded his fat 
fist upon the patient face of his young nurse. 
A victorious clutch at her hair made Penny 
shudder. Perhaps even at that moment 
was Helen, yes Helen, not Ellen, under- 
going torture. Perhaps when he was eating 
an irreproachable dinner, served faultlessly 
by a noiseless butler, Helen would be dis- 
pensing sloppy bowls of bread and milk 
amid the liotous howls of some such nursery 
tyrant. 

In the meantime Helen was doing no 
such thing. Arrayed in the contents of her 
bundle, dimpled and smiling, she was pre- 
siding over as perfect a dinner as Penny’s, 
and amusing three admiring young men of 
Penny’s own set, with the tale of the cook. 
And Penny had refused an invitation to 
that very dinner ! 

The next week Miss Push went to El- 
beron, and later to Bar Harbor, where she 
rowed and canoed, and played tennis, till 
her health and vigour rivalled Penny’s own. 

Meanwhile the haunts of Penny knew 
him no more. He became clumsy at bil- 
liards and oblivious of jack-pots. He spent 
many hours at the Philadelphia Library, 


WANTED — A SITUATION. 


19 


where he alternated his studies between his- 
torical researches into the fortunes of King 
Cophetua, and other mis-matched digni- 
taries ; and politico-economical treatises on 
the elevation of the working classes. These 
treatises Penny regarded with scorn. He 
considered, on the one hand, Miss Eebecca 
Kingston-Pettigrew, an authority on Uni- 
versity Extension and pedigree, and, on the 
other, an equally blue-blooded, but less 
rigid young woman of his set, whose doings 
fell below the moral standard required of 
ballet-dancers. He tried to imagine these 
young women elevating Helen ! 

Then — for Rameos and Leanders still 
walk among us, though disguised in soft 
hats and tweeds — an impulse of chivalrous 
pity and honest first love so worked on 
Penny that he went into an Intelligence 
Office. Pity him, ye kindly matrons who 
dread your own excursions into those abodes 
of gloom! He found himself confronted 
by a row of anxious mistresses and a row 
of defiant maids. 

Between the rival camps a book and pen- 
cil served as flag of truce. The sharp-faced 
woman who carried them continued her 


20 


WANIED — A SITUATION. 


negotiations as if there were no Penny 
Wood. At last he accosted her in the soft 
English accent he had with ease grafted 
upon his partly-Southern tongue. (The 
Philadelphian proper may play cricket, but 
he cannot make “You know’’ sound like 
Piccadilly.) 

The woman interrupted his timid begin- 
ning. “If you want a place as coachman,” 
she said, “it’s no use to wait; we only want 
one coloured one to-day.” 

The composure that had won him praises 
in some of the stiffest hunting -fields in 
England, failed him here. Love, however, 
was mightier than wounded pride, and he 
said, “Do you know anything of a house- 
maid named Ellen Tracy. 

“Did she come from here?” 

“I don’t know.” The name of the P. Gl. 
R. D. E. Bureau had escaped his disturbed 
mind. 

“Well, if you want her reference you 
must go where she gets her situations. We 
don’t keep track of all the servants in 
town.” 

So Penny found his way out. 

Mrs. W. Penn Wood, Sen., had not yet 


WANTED — A SITUATION. 


21 


gone to the Springs. She had sent an ad- 
vance guard of her daughters, chaperoned 
by Aunt Virginia Cabell. ‘‘But, Penn, 
dear, I must stay to look after Penny,’' she 
said, anxiously, to her unobservant spouse. 
For the state affirmed of Calverley’s Far- 
mer’s Daughter, who 

“Sat with her hands ’neath her crimson cheeks, 

And gazed far out o’er the misty leas,” 

was not more distressing than Penny’s. 
He got up in the night, and rode wildly 
around on his bicycle till grey dawn. Then, 
oversleeping, he came down hollow-eyed to 
dream over his breakfast. One morning 
when the neat waiting-maid who served his 
late and slender meal said, tentatively, 
“Sugar, sir?” he responded, absently, 
“Yes, darling,” thinking of the lovely 
Helen, giving perhaps the sugar of her 
smiles to unappreciative babes. 

Then modest little Irish Nora, weeping, 
gave notice, and Penny’s mother said to 
him, with sad severity, “I can’t think what 
has come over you. Penny. I hope you 
haven’t taken up low ways. ’ ’ While Penny, 
writhing in the depths of his clean young 
soul, could give no explanation. So his 


22 WANTED — A SITUATION. 

mother carried him off to the Springs, and 
one way and another, the wretched summer 
ended. 

In late September he went — do not dis- 
believe the whole of this truthful tale 
because of the improbability of the next 
assertion — he went to a tea! Of course, 
young men do not go to teas, if they are in 
their right minds, but Penny had done 
many strange things that summer. This 
was a garden tea at Elberon, and the cards 
read, 

Mr. and Mrs. Peregrine Van Hulst, 

To meet Mr. Famous Historian. 

Penny went because he had a courteous 
habit, according to family tradition, of never 
declining invitations without good reason, 
and also because, in the simplicity of his 
young heart, he hoped to corner Mr. Famous 
Historian, and ask his opinion about King 
Cophetua. That opinion he never heard, 
for in an alcove of late roses, under pink 
Chinese lanterns, dispensing nectar from a 
samovar, sat a glorified vision of his lost 
Helen! He did not suspect her identity. 
Miss Kush’s oldest friends were often sur- 
prised by her beauty in gala dress. But 


WANTED — A SITUATION. 23 

while his loyal soul wavered, a living, lovely 
Helen in his own set had heavy odds against 
a lost housemaid ! 

‘ ‘ Oh , that is Miss Helen Rush, ’ ’ his hostess 
said, in answer to his eager inquiry, “young 
Mrs. Worthington Price’s sister. She’s 
more clever than the beauty. Some think 
she is as handsome.” Which Penny quite 
believed. 

Helen recognized him the moment she 
was introduced to him, but gave no sign. 
Perhaps a summer of what her little niece 
called “outness” had cured her of blushing; 
or if a glow appeared, it may have been due 
to the Chinese lanterns. 

The samovar comes from the land of 
flirtations. Unlike the exacting English 
tea-kettle, which expects every maid to do 
her duty, it considerately takes care of 
itself, and Helen used her freedom from 
“pouring” to such purpose that the memory 
of Ellen Tracy faded into the mists of the 
Past, in Penny’s mind. 

That week the club saw a resurrected 
Penny Wood. Again his haunts knew him, 
and especially did he assiduously cling to 
the society of Mr. Worthington Price. The 


24 WANTED — A SITUATION. 

latter saw no duplicity in Penny, being 
blindly certain of having secured the most 
desirable member of the family for his own 
wife, and he invited Penny to Elberon for 
a week. 

In the humility of his devotion he won- 
dered much at the indulgent kindness of his 
divinity, and never suspected that some of 
it was due to Maggie the housemaid, who 
had told Helen, while dusting her room one 
morning, that Mr. Wood had once seen her 
crying in the street, in the evening, because 
a rude man insisted on speaking to her. 
And Mr. Wood had put the foe to flight, 
and escorted Maggie, ‘dike a real lady,” to 
her desired haven. So Helen had given 
Maggie some pretty bits of finery, regarding 
Penny, in the whiteness of her girlish 
dreams, as a knight without reproach. 

It is an old belief that one must have 
much good who is liked by children and 
animals. And it was certainly the case that 
Miss Gwendolen Price, aged five years, 
rather a haughty little person, said after 
due consideration, “It isn’t very usual that 
I kiss a moustache, but I will kiss you! ” 

Also, in one of the moonlight strolls in 


WANTED — A SITUATION. 


25 


the lanes of Elberon he beguiled a deserted, 
mewing kitten from a wall. He took it 
home in his strong young arm, — the other 
arm, not that on which rested contentedly 
Helen’s little hand. She grew to love that 
black kitten. It had sea-green eyes, and 
used to coil around her pretty throat, nest- 
ling close to her, while Penny envied the 
happy creature. 

At length it became apparent even to 
Worthington Price that something must 
happen. As you have seen, speech came 
seldom to Penny Wood. In spite of Uni- 
versity honours and a habit of good reading 
he lacked a vocabulary, and carried on 
many conversations with a pair of honest 
grey eyes and an appreciative smile. 

One day when Worthington Price alluded 
to, ‘The day you came home from Bryn 
Mawr, Helen, and were mistaken for a 
housemaid,” Penny saw his error in a flash 
of enlightenment, and, no longer torn by 
loyalty, made up his mind. 

Mr. and Mrs. Price benevolently went 
driving after dinner, the other guests scat- 
tered, leaving Penny and Helen in posses- 
sion of the vine-covered porch. 


26 


WANTED— A SITUATION. 


Though Penny^s miud was made up, there 
was no immediate manifestation of that 
fact. 

Helen, somewhat tremulous, as sweet 
good girls are in the day of their destiny, 
talked of golf, and guilds, of grandees and 
generalities. Penny watched her fingers 
stroke her little black cat. 

The moonlight trickled through the arches 
of the wide low porch. A bat rushed with 
a little thud against the wall, and out again. 
The little birds stirred slightly in their nests 
in the vines. The little cat listened. Then, 
the scratch of wheels on the driveway — Mrs. 
Price’s pretty penetrating laugh. Penny 
made a mighty effort, “Are you — ah — still 
looking for a place?” 

And Helen said, “Oh! Penny! ” and thus 
accepted a permanent situation. 

When, after the honeymoon, Mrs. W. 
Penn Wood Jun. wished to engage a maid 
for her apartments, she found herself boy- 
cotted in the office of the P. Gr. E. D. E. 
bureau. Poetic justice, long delayed, de- 
scended when the pretty, proud head of 
Mrs. Wood appeared in the doorway. A 
very stout woman sat among the waiting 


WANTED — A SITUATION. 


27 


servants, and said to her companions, ‘‘don’t 
ye go to that woman! She’s dressed fine, 
and gives herself airs, but she used to be a 
servant herself. I won’t worruk for anybody 
that’s not a lady born!” 

Shades of the ancestors of Mrs. Penny 
.Wood, Jun., nee Rush! 



HER NOVEL. 


There was an evening when she lay upon 
the Turkish divan in her boudoir, lighted 
only by the flicker from the open Are. The 
gentle crackling of the wood was the only 
sound, except when an unusually strong 
gust of wind made itself heard through the 
thick plate-glass window panes. She was 
stretched out supinely, after the manner 
recommended by the Delsarte system, in 
which every muscle is limp and every nerve 
tensiouless. 

Sleep came not to her tired eyes, nor did 
forgetfulness relieve the painful pressure on 
her brain, the pain of a headache that had 
lasted for days. Then, in the pain of brain 
and quiescence of body, the limpet-like con- 
dition gradually communicated itself to the 
mind, and connected thoughts and memo- 
ries no longer followed each other, but her 
mind was benumbed and blurred, with noth- 
ing distinguishable showing upon its mental 
retina. 


( 28 ) 


HER NOVEL. 


29 


And all at once, in the semi- comatose 
condition, her novel came into existence 
within the tired, blurred brain. She lay 
more still, more passive than before, for 
fear that it was a dream, or that a jostling 
would rend apart the frail scaffolding upon 
which she would erect an edifice at once 
delicate and strong to bring her lasting 
fame. She saw the heroine, a subtle, splen- 
did creature, a “new woman’’ with all the 
sweetness of the old, yet with a mysterious 
development of mind and soul which made 
her grandmothers seem as flavorless as an 
anemone beside a lotus flower. 

She saw the hero, a man big enough in 
head and heart to worthily win the strange 
woman, and they came together in a sur- 
rounding of other characters, clever, clear- 
cut and cunningly interwoven in a plot so 
intricate and yet so humanly probable that 
if it were written as she saw it the whole 
world must read and marvel. 

There was only one possible point for 
doubt or question, and “That is, that I have 
thought of it,” she said to herself in humil- 
ity. “I will ask the Critic what he thinks 
of it when he comes again.” 


30 


HER NOVEL. 


The Critic had been her dead husband’s 
friend, and by virtue of that had continued 
to be hers even during the period after his 
death when she had hated to see people, not 
because she was stricken with grief, but be- 
cause she was not. The Critic was the one 
who loved her best, although she did not 
know it ; and because he loved her, as well 
as because he was tired of other people’s 
writings, he had been most merciless to her 
when at times she had shown him her 
scribblings. 

Therefore, when the Critic came in and 
found her with the headache burnt out with 
the excitement of her thoughts, she was 
surprised that he was no longer merciless 
but frankly admiring as she unfolded her 
plot. 

‘Tt is a novel, a wonderful one,” he said, 
looking earnestly at her. The firelight fell 
on her face making her pink cheeks glow 
more brightly and casting rosy lights on her 
shimmering gown of gray. ^‘You have 
taken off your black gown. I like this 
better,” the Critic said. ^‘But the novel. 
How did you think of it?” 

“I did not think of it. It bloomed in my 


HER NOVEL. 


31 


head as I lay thinking of nothing. It was 
like the development of a negative. I was 
trying to be very quiet, but the pain in my 
head kept my mind rocking back and forth, 
with many mental images washing over it 
like the developing fluid. Then the novel 
began to show as a picture comes out on the 
plate, first the heroine, the hero, the story 
even to the close. Oh, Critic!’^ she cried, 
clasping her hands with the pleading of a 
child, “tell me to write it. Command me 
to write it.’’ 

“I command you,” he said, half laugh- 
ing; and then earnestly, “It is a novel, a 
fine one. It will be the novel of the year 
and one of the novels of all time.” The 
next day she was well and strong, full of a 
restless longing to write the novel. She 
conquered this lest through eagerness she 
should make a false start. She read Shake- 
speare, remembering that someone says that 
to write well one should read well every day. 
She glanced over some modern novels to 
catch an idea of their make-up ; the number 
of chapters, of words, the mere mechanical 
details that go to perfection. In the after- 
noon a telegram came from her friend, the 


32 


HEB NOVEL. 


Editor, saying, ‘‘Expect me to-morrow for 
a short visit. ” A clever woman the Editor, 
and successful, though still in her twenties. 
A lovely woman as well, and sympathetic in 
all that touched her friend. Her visit 
lengthened into weeks, which slipped by in 
a pleasant fashion, and she said to herself, 
“When the Editor goes I will write the 
novel.” 

Every day added a new sentence, an epi- 
gram or side-light to the novel. Each of 
these the Critic approved, and if she said a 
clever thing she had to catch herself to keep 
from saying “That is from such and such a 
chapter of the novel,” so complete was it 
within her mind. 

When the Editor had gone, she said. “I 
will begin this week, but to-day and to- 
morrow I must finish all those visits so that 
I may have my time uninterrupted.” She 
ordered the carriage, and drove from house 
to house, finding no one so interesting as 
the creatures who lived within her brain. 

That evening the Critic came. “How is 
the novel!” he asked. 

“Not a line is written yet, but to-morrow 
I shall begin.” 


HER NOVEL. 


33 


The Critic looked at her tenderly, yet with 
a probing earnestness. ‘ ‘You used the simile 
of a negative in reference to this story. You 
know, if a negative flashes out complete it is 
overtimed. I hope,” he added, with some- 
thing like timidity for the Critic, “that your 
novel is not overtimed.” 

“I think not,” she said. 

“But you must write it,” urged the Critic. 
“I saw the other day a point in a poor story, 
a very poor story, which I was reviewing, 
that just suggested yours. Someone else 
might think of otlier points, and your novel 
would be spoiled.” He spoke with eager- 
ness which seemed strange to her. 

Before the novel had been thought of, 
this woman had satisfied him as she was. 
From the soft parting of her gold brown 
liair, the red lips, the questioning eyes, to 
the beaded tips of her dainty slippers, she 
was all he craved. But now he wished her 
to be the author of a book that all might 
praise. 

This was because the Critic was more 
generous than many men, and did not fear 
lest the lustre of her name might dim his 
own. He was philosopher as well, and un- 


34 


HER NOVEL. 


derstood that a thwarted pui-pose eats iuto 
the heart and blights. 

In the early morning a maid came to her 
with troubled face. She hastened to the 
nursery, and found her little son tossing in 
fever. The golden hair was harsh and 
tangled; the eyes, like her own, wistfully 
bewildered ; the little hands pulling at the 
bedclothes like the fears that tugged at the 
mother’s heart. And when the Critic came 
he had not the heart to ask about the novel, 
though the days turned into weeks, for the 
child grew no bettor, but lingered in slow, 
consuming fever. Then there came a 
change, and the fever left him, and he was 
ordered to a watering-place early in the sum- 
mer, when June roses blow, and no one has 
time for anything except joyfully to be alive. 

So she said: ^‘When my child is well 
again, I will write the novel.” And she 
wrote to the Critic: ‘‘Do not be impatient 
with me, my friend; this idle place is not 
the one for earnest work. Come to see it, 
and justify my procrastination.” 

The Critic laid down his pen, locked his 
desk and sailed to the desert paradise, where 
the gray sea washed the rocks and the mist 


HER NOVEL. 


35 


hid the islands enwrapped in a mysterious 
veil that provoked one to wonder and 
dream. 

Here he found the child growing sturdy 
again, and she was more beautiful, more 
fascinating than ever. The days slid by on 
the rocks or in the woods, and she said: 
‘‘When I go home I will write the novel.’’ 

Then one day as she lay in a hammock 
on the deck of a friend’s yacht, there shot 
out of some corner of her brain a title for 
the story; a title suggestive, yet revealing 
nothing, and withal so alluring that in fancy 
she Saw it blazoned in gold on the cover of 
a book lying midst hundreds of others on 
the book-stall, and no one could glance at 
another book while this one lay there, this 
one that as yet existed only in her brain. 
She flushed with delight, saying to herself, 
“Now its success is certain.” She saw the 
Critic across the deck, and her eyes called 
him to her. He came, and she repeated the 
name for the novel without comment or ex- 
planation. His eyes kindled, and he ex- 
claimed: “That is perfection! How did 
3^ou invent it?” 

“I do not know. It bloomed like the 


36 


HER NOVEL. 


story. I must write the novel. I think of 
it day and night. It lives with me all the 
time, but I cannot write it here.’’ 

And as she said this the Critic thought, 
“I must not speak yet of myself. She is 
absorbed, and when she finishes it she will 
have time for me.” 

The summer waned; the beautiful boy 
was well and strong, and they returned to 
town, to be met by the innumerable duties 
attendant on opening a house for the winter. 
When the Critic came to talk to her in the 
autumn dusk he found her tired or full of 
plans for further making beautiful the house 
already almost worthy of her lovely presence. 
“After Christmas I will write it,” she said, 
and there was a certain pleading in her tone 
which somehow recalled by force of contrast 
the day when she had begged him, “Com- 
mand me to write it.” 

Before Christmas there were endless hours 
of thought and care for the preparation of 
many gifts not only for friends, but for the 
poor as well ; the purchase of costly gifts for 
some, the preparation of dainty trifles for 
others to whom money value was nothing 
and love a great deal. For the Critic she 


HER NOVEL. 


37 


embroidered a book cover and gave it to 
liim with a laugh and blush, saying, “That 
is for the novel when it is finished.’’ 

Christmas came with its tender joys and 
bitter memories, its disappointments and un- 
expected pleasures. Her child was more 
lovely than ever and took his enjoyment 
with a sweet reserve which did not leave him 
blas^ and unchildishly bitter afterwards. 

She said, “I must have all the time with 
him now. After the holidays I will begin 
to write.” 

Then the claims of society grew strong 
and she who charmed and interested even 
those who did not like her was in demand 
on all occasions. In the crowded ballroom 
she saw not the men and women around 
her, but as pale shadows in comparison with 
the men and women of the story. At the 
play, the plot dragged and the lesson of the 
drama seemed a strangely sweet yet pungent 
lesson of the novel yet unwritten. When 
the applause was loudest she glanced at the 
Critic and shook her head as if to say, “This 
is nothing to what I shall do.” 

Yet as the belief in her novel and in her 
writing of it grew stronger, and as she rested 


38 


HER NOVEL. 


contentedly in her own procrastination, as- 
suring herself by the wise old saying that 
“Rome was not built in a day,” the Critic 
grew grave, for he had seen before an in- 
spiration vanish and the red-hot fervor of a 
noble purpose cool. And he felt he could 
wait no longer to tell her of his love for her. 
For she grew fairer and gayer, and the 
shadow of the dead man, her husband, 
moved farther back. 

She stood one evening by her open desk, 
with its dainty feminine belongings ; the fire 
on the hearth burned brightly, there were 
roses and violets both in the room, and the 
samovar steamed faintly on the tea-table. 
The Critic came in, and his sharp face 
seemed drawn and almost harsh. She wel- 
comed him brightly, not remarking upon 
his manner. She was looking exquisite, and 
the Critic’s face loosened its tension as he 
looked at her. She wore another clinging 
gown of gray, and there were pink roses at 
her breast. 

“You are looking at my gown,” she said. 
“I remembered your preference,” she 
added, flushing slightly, “and ordered an- 
other something like it; not quite like it. 


HER NOVEL. 


39 


you know, for one could not wear a gown a 
year. It is a year,’’ she said, smilingly, ‘‘a 
year since I thought of the novel. I must 
begin to write it. What are these books?” 
she asked, glancing at the parcel in his 
hands. The Critic had two books, strapped 
together by a heavy rubber band. A bit of 
paper with notes scribbled on it protruded 
from one end of a volume. 

His face grew dark, and she thought his 
hand trembled. 

“Be prepared, my friend, for a great dis- 
appointment,” he said. 

She searched his face, and, finding neither 
mockery nor amusement, grew serious. 

He took off the rubber band, and turned 
one book with its title-cover towards her. 
In gold letters she read the clever, alluring 
title reserved in her mind for her novel. 
Her face was shadowed; then, recovering, 
she said: “I shall have to find another. 
‘A rose by any other name would smell as 
sweet.’ ” 

The Critic took her hand, and drew her 
down beside him on the divan, opening the 
other book. 

“Alas! my friend, it would be but a 


40 


HER NOVEL. 


withered rose. ’’ Her eyes followed his hand 
as he turned from chapter to chapter, and 
even in that cursory way she saw the essence 
of her story was there, unworthily written 
and unevenly developed — far from the per- 
fection of which she had dreamed ; yet so 
near in conception that her own could never 
be written without bringing her more blame 
as a copyist of other’s ideas than praise. 

She took the book from him, and turned 
the pages again; then she pushed it from 
her, and hid her face in a great silken 
pillow, shedding silent tears. 

The Critic waited a moment, then spoke 
softly: 

“You cannot write it now.” 

“No,” she said, sadly. “I cannot write 
it now.” Her questioning eyes probed his 
face for a sign of what he thought of her, 
whether he despised her for throwing her 
chance away. 

His face grew wonderfully tender, and his 
voice sweet as he took her two hands, say- 
ing, “The world will never know what you 
are, perhaps, for you can never write the 
novel. But I know you, my dearest,” as 
he gathered her in his arms, “and it is 
written on my heart.” 


TWO CHORUS GIRLS. 


The Brahms Glee Club was in a state of 
strong excitement. This was surprising to 
themselves ; for hitherto their expectations 
that a glee club would be something delight- 
fully ‘‘Bohemian’^ had not been realized. 
The members of the club belonged almost 
entirely to the upper strata of society, who 
were fond of music, and somewhat tired of 
the usual round of dinners, theatre parties 
and teas. They had hoped that rare speci- 
mens of musical lions would enliven their 
meetings, and that other romantic features 
might make life more piquant. Yet even 
their aesthetic looking conductor, with a 
flowing mane of curly hair, who looked as 
romantic as if a whole legion of Walkyrie 
were pursuing him, was a most prosaic 
person. 

But suddenly the Club was wrapped in an 
atmosphere of real Bohemianism. Herr 
Griiner, their conductor, was a friend of the 
manager of the Jenny Wren Opera Company, 
( 41 ; 


42 


TWO CHORUS GIRLS. 


and had received a telegram asking whether 
the Club would be willing to learn the chorale 
ill Cavalleria Rusticana^ as he needed an ex- 
tra chorus behind the scenes. Would the 
Club? It almost regretted it was not asked 
to join the ballet! 

‘‘We shall have season tickets for two 
whole weeks! ” said young Mrs. Barry, who 
gave away all her pocket-money in charity, 
and rarely had any left for amusements. 

“And we can go to the Green Room!^’ 
gasped little Florence Burton, who imagined 
many fascinations in stage life which ac- 
curate knowledge does not bring to light. 

“You vill haf to vork ! ” said Herr Griiner, 
severely, “you cannot sing chorales like 
dis! thumping the music desk, as he swept 
a contemptuous glance over his dilettante 
members. 

As I have said, they were all “in society,’^ 
though all did not reside on Rittenhouse 
Square. Mr. Roger Williams Price, ordi- 
narily known as Billy Price, not only be- 
longed to the “best people” but might have 
been identified as the very “best person” 
himself, if such a person exists in the con- 
crete. Since his elder brother. Worthing- 


TWO CHOEUS GIRLS. 


43 


ton, had married one beautiful Miss Rush, 
and Penny Wood had captured the other, 
there was no unmarried man in the set who 
was quite so desirable. 

Strangely enough, the fortunate girl upon 
whom Billy had fixed his choice was singu- 
larly unappreciative. She was a very beau- 
tiful girl, in a cold, lily-like and self-con- 
tained style of blonde beauty which did not 
attract many admirers, since she was much 
more absorbed in her own dreams and 
theories of life than in listening to others. 
Popularity demands a certain self-sacrifice, 
and at least a feigning of interest in the 
world of those around us. But Ursula 
Chase, being an orphan, rich in her own 
right, and diligently chaperoned by her 
energetic aunt, Mrs. Declaration Signer, was 
quite indifferent to her advantages, and 
eagerly desirous of something out of the 
beaten track. Her aunt kept her cabined, 
cribbed, confined, till the hosts of Attila 
would have seemed a corporaPs guard in 
comparison with her restrictions. 

Ursula Chase was not in the least stage- 
struck. She was unusually free from vanity, 
and the longing for display felt by many 


44 


TWO CHOEUS GIELS. 


girls was incomprehensible to her. She was 
also so very sincere that she felt it impossible 
to sing a song with feeling, when the senti- 
ments of a song were not her own. Yet she 
felt a great interest in actors, that race by 
themselves, and she wanted to know some 
of. them, and to pierce the mask which 
covered the real man or woman. She had 
some natural ability for the study of charac- 
ter, yet was handicapped by a tendency to 
make everything subjective. If new ac- 
quaintances were attractive to her she en- 
veloped them in a haze of her own imagina- 
tion which blinded her judgement. When 
not attracted she made no effort to please, 
and was more than indifferent to Billy 
Price, seeing nothing but his red hair, spec- 
tacles and a devotion she did not care to 
accept. When his beautiful baritone voice 
rose above the general chorus, and he gazed 
at her over the top of his music with a tender, 
dog-like fidelity, she was infinitely annoyed, 
yet her coldness deterred him no more than 
the North Polo repels its victims. 

The first night of the opera season came, 
and no first nighters ever regarded a per- 
formance with more indulgence than the 


TWO CHORUS GIRLS. 


45 


Club when Carmen was given with good 
effect. But Cavallsria was billed for the 
second day, so in the morning they assembled 
for rehearsal. 

A day-time rehearsal ought to dispel all 
glamor from the life of the stage. When 
the chorus, clad in shabby street costumes, 
stumbles around among queer contrivances, 
dusty dark passages and shaky scenery, 
they are a different people from the gay, 
picturesque crowds of peasants, gypsies or 
courtiers. Yet Ursula entering the chaos, 
its atmosphere heavy with lost illusions, saw 
all bathed in a rosy light of her own fancy, 
and especially did she look with keen in- 
terest at the first tenor. Monsieur le Nor- 
mand, who played Don Jose the first night 
and was to play Tiirridu. He was ideally 
handsome as few tenors are, and his good 
looks were enhanced by a superb manner, 
which implied better breeding than is usual 
in his profession. 

The rehearsal began, and the Glee Club 
were driven like a flock of sheep into a dark 
spot which, they were informed, represented 
the interior of a church from which they 
found it difficult to keep the key, to catch 


46 


TWO CHORUS GIRLS. 


the signal, to remember their music, for it 
was too dark to see, and they suddenly 
acquired a great respect for the inconspicu- 
ous chorus singers who knew not only tliis 
whole opera but many more. At last tlie 
organ stopped with sudden effect as if a 
candle were blown out. 

“Some one is standing on the hose!” 
cried Herr Griiner. Pardon, Mademoiselle,” 
said a voice of exquisite sweetness at Ursu- 
la’s side, “it is you.” In the haste with whicli 
Miss Chase restored the wind to the organ 
she nearly deprived herself of breath by 
knocking her head violently against the pro- 
jecting gargoyle on a scene near. And from 
his post among the tenors Mr. Price saw 
Monsieur le Normand assisting the hitherto 
impassive snow-maiden with all the courtly 
grace which was his by nature as well as by 
stage training. Nor was the opportunity 
allowed to slip by unimproved, and a flirta- 
tion of such intensity followed, that the cal- 
cium lights seemed pale by comparison. 
The handsome tenor quite won Mrs. Signer 
by his reminiscences of her friends in Paris, 
from some of whom he bore general letters 
of introduction. 


TWO CHORUS GIRLS. 


47 


All this was very distressing to Mr. Billy 
Price. If he could not have gone at almost 
any time when his burden became too great 
for him to bear alone, to pour out his woes 
to his friends Mr. and Mrs. W. Penn Wood, 
Jr., he could have scarcely retained his rea- 
son by the end of the two weeks of the 
opera season. Mrs. Penny Wood had been 
married about three months, and was still 
in that state of extreme bliss which makes 
a young married woman eager to see every 
one else equally happy. Ever since her 
eldest sister had married Worthington 
Price, there had been great comrade-ship 
between Helen and Billy. She tried with 
all her feminine arts to comfort him in his 
Liebesclimerz ; as he sat disconsolate in 
their pretty apartment, she and her husband 
surrounded him with all the kindly atten- 
tions that friendship could devise. Yet 
mi nt drops cannot minister to a mind dis- 
eased, nor sherry-cobblers heal a wounded 
heart. 

‘‘Oh, I say! Helen, wailed Billy, — his 
sentences nearly always began with “oh, I 
say!” in a mellifluous thickness of accent 
which was considered particularly English 


48 


TWO CHOEUS GIKLS. 


in the “smart” set, — “lie goes to see her on 
his off nights, and sings duets mth her, 
and she will hardly speak to me! ” 

“Never mind, Billy, he will go away and 
that will be the end of it,” said Helen, 
soothingly, as she stuffed some extra cush- 
ions beside him on the sofa, and screened 
his eyes from the firelight with a Watteau 
fan. And Mr. Wood, without words as was 
his wont, gave the substantial comfort of 
mulled ale after a recipe familiar to his 
mother’s people, the Cabells, for two cen- 
turies. 

There were still five nights more of the 
opera season. Mr. and Mrs. Wood v/ent 
every night, yet they did not fully enjoy the 
music for the cares of friendship. There 
was a wild look under Billy’s eye-glasses 
that indicated an almost desperate state of 
mind. Helen listened distractedly with one 
ear on the music, half fancying at times 
that she caught a shriek or pistol-shot not 
called for by the libretto. 

With all this pain and anxiety centred 
about one of its members, the rest of the 
Glee Club was enjoying itself as never be-, 
fore. The love-affairs were prospering un- 


TWO CHORUS GIRLS. 


49 


dor the favoring atmosphere of romance. 
May Keithley had studied music in France, 
- and delighted her whole train of adorers by 
little private rehearsals in which she sang 
the contralto arias in exquisite style. Charley 
Burton had emancipated himself from his 
mamma, and was disporting himself in what 
he considered a deeply interesting flirtation 
with a bedizened blonde of forty years. She, 
poor soul, was bored almost to death, and 
thought wistfully of her six children at 
home in Germany. 

A climax came. In the box on the green 
room side sat Lliss Chase, a monochrome in 
shining silvery gray, and no color anywhere 
about her but in the beautiful golden hair, 
and the opalescent spark in the clear-cut 
paleness of her delicate cheek. She was 
tall with the lily-like stateliness of a princess. 
And Monsieur le Normand was Fausts a 
Faust of felicitous fascination of which one 
might dream in the soft dusk between sun- 
set and dark, when common things become 
irksome, and the old-world story makes one 
long for love and youth again. He sang 
with a splendor of passion that caused the 
clear light in Ursula’s gray eyes to change 


50 


TWO CHORUS GIRLS. 


to the blaze of diamonds,, and he sang, not 
at the blue and white Marguerite in the 
stage window, but at the cameo face in the 
box beyond, half hidden under the feathery 
gray fan. 

Mr. Billy Price, with what pangs in his 
jmung soul only men in their first love knoAv, 
tried in vain to win attention from his ab- 
sorbed goddess, and rushed from the box. 
He paced the corridor restlessly ; chill drafts 
from the swinging doors made him shiver, 
and the penetrating sweetness of the tenor 
voice sent cold arrows through his soul. He 
went to the green-room in search of distrac- 
tion, but the grisettes of Nuremberg could 
not take his thoughts from the cruel creature 
ill the box. The populace trooped away to 
assist at the death of Valentine, and Billy 
sat down on a wooden bench, his white 
hands pulling at his red hair and a gnawing 
pain tearing his honest heart. Midst the 
confusion of his thoughts one little cry 
pierced his ear with a note of reality whicli 
separated it from the chorus of shrieks made 
to order on the stage. He rose and went 
forward quickly; groping among loose 
boards, ropes, properties, he found on the 


TWO CHORUS GIRLS. 


51 


dusty floor a thin, painted little chorus girl, 
in a dead faint, — the rouge on her cheeks 
accentuated the death-like pallor around it, 
and an artificial bunch of Jacqueminots lay 
like a blood stain on her white neckerchief. 

In the box Miss Chase, hiding with her 
fan the elation that had flamed into her face 
at Faust’s last glances, was saying lightly to 
a new-comer, “Yes, it is charming! I am 
proud to consider myself a sort of amateur 
chorus girl in such a company.” 

, When the Grlee Club met a week later it 
was with something of the melancholy of 
mourners after a funeral. It was Billy Price's 
turn to entertain them ; they met in rotation 
at each other’s houses. His mother and 
sister-in-law were in Florida, so Mrs. Penny 
W^ood came to act as hostess. Her duties 
were not very arduous, and she found her- 
self with time enough to take notes on her 
friend’s guests. She saw that Miss Ursula 
Chase was distinctly bored and could not be 
enlivened by any one. If Herr Criiner had 
roused his imagination to any conception of 
their states of mind, he would have searched 
the repertory for some stirring glees. In- 
stead of which he produced a Pastorelle 


52 


TWO CnOEUS GIRLS. 


which Miss Chase particularly disliked. She 
would not sing at all ; she sat in a corner 
pushing the rings up and down her long 
white fingers; some palm leaves shadowed 
her golden hair, and a tall lamp cast a pink 
glow on her face. In her pocket was a 
letter, French, piquant, charming as the 
man himself, from Monsieur le Normand. 
Opposite was Billy Price, his hopeless devo- 
tion stinging her, in her ears the hateful 
ditty: 

“Life hath no dark shadow, ’tis a Paradise. 

There no naughty deed is w'rought 

For men are fair and blameless.” 

Its melodious monotony contrasted with 
the clamors of her turbulent young heart like 
the soft moan of doves with the frenzied 
scrappings of cicadas. • 

“Helen,’’ whispered Mr. Penn Wood, as 
they listened from a corner, “I’m sorry for 
Billy.” 

“So I should suppose,” said Helen vigor- 
ously, “I cannot imagine what any girl wants 
more than Billy,” it seemed to her as she 
watched the expression of earnestness on 
her husband’s face, that his sorrow might 
assume some active form, but her attention 


TWO CHOEUS GIELS. 53 

was distracted by the end of the rehearsal 
and the announcement of supper. 

Miss Chase relented a little from the 
sternness of ennui with which she had re- 
garded her fellow mortals during the even- 
ing, when Mr. Wood took her into the 
supper- room, and placed her in a pleasant 
alcove away from the glow of the fire. It 
was scarcely possible to hold out sternly 
against Mr. Wood. The serenity which 
possessed him since his marriage had added 
strength to his former silent charm. He 
gave Ursula the salads and claret-cup which 
Helen, not feeling bound by the Club rules, 
had substituted for beer and pretzels, and 
sat beside her in deep meditation. At length 
he said, “We had rather a melancholy end- 
ing to our opera season, did we not. Miss 
Chaser’ 

“I do not know, what do you mean,” she 
asked, with a little flicker of interest. 

“Did not Billy tell you about his chorus 
girl?” 

“No,” she said, surprising herself by a 
very faint qualm of jealousy. 

“No, I suppose not, he does not talk 
about his own good deeds. Well, during 


54 


TWO CHOKUS GIRLS. 


the fourth act of Faust, Billy was alone in 
tbe green room.’’ Ursula flushed a little. 
Penny gazed at the slice of cucumber in his 
claret-cup as if it were the pivot of creation. 
He continued, “one poor little woman 
fainted and, in falling, struck her head. 
Billy picked her up and carried her to a 
bench; none of tbe supers seemed to be 
about. Billy rushed out to Dr. Carter who 
was in the house, and he soon brought her 
to rights as far as the fainting was con- 
cerned.” 

“What else was the matter?” asked 
Ursula, with languid interest, “overwork, I 
suppose.” 

“Partly, said Penny, “but she was dazed, 
almost delirious, and we heard enough in 
broken sentences to understand that Mon- 
sieur le Normand had been her lover in some 
previous stage of existence. I think they 
had sung together in the French provinces 
before he became very famous, and her voice 
had failed. He had forgo’tten or ignored 
her.” And Mr. Wood turned away to refill 
their glasses. 

Ursula took hers mechanically, leaving it 
untasted, and in a voice somewhat harder 


TWO CHORUS GIRLS. 


55 


than her usually crisp sweet tone, asked, 
“What is the rest of the story, Mr. Wood!’’ 

“Oh, the rest you can guess, you know 
Billy so well, do you not?” 

“I do not know,” said Ursula, the thought 
bearing down upon her that possibly she 
had underrated that young man. 

“Oh, Billy, of course, being Billy, got a 
carriage and took her home, or rather, for 
Carter said she would be very ill and could 
not go on with her engagement, took her 
to a quiet boarding house for distressed 
working women that he had come across 
in some legal business.” 

“Is she getting well,” asked Ursula. 

“No,” he said, “she was very weak and 
delirious; she begged to see Monsieur le 
Normand and raved of a beautiful blonde 
woman. Marguerite., I suppose,” said Penny 
with chivalrous hypocrisy, pitying the pain 
in Ursula’s fair face. 

“Did he go to her?” asked Ursula, her 
voice like the ring of steel. 

“No,” said Mr. Wood, “but Billy found 
an old French priest who seemed to under- 
stand her after she became conscious, and 
the third night after that she died.” 


56 


TWO CHOSUS GIKLS. 


There was a little hush in the gaity of the 
room ; some one carelessly brushed against 
the lustres of the candelabra with a little 
tinkle. In the silence Penny heard a soft 
sigh, as of the rustle of departing garments, 
perhaps the ghost of Ursula’s ideal just then 
deserted the chambers of her mind. 

Helen came towards them, her accustomed 
happiness shining in her sweet eyes. ‘ ‘ What 
a long conversation. Miss Chase! What 
magic you possess! I never saw Mr. Wood 
talk so much before.” 

“He had plenty to say, it is not due to 
magic of mine,” said Ursula, regarding him 
with a sort of grateful reproach. Having 
told his story he relapsed into taciturnity. 
Ursula felt silent herself, and was glad that 
he stayed near her after they returned to 
the drawing room. Yet Mrs. Penny Wood 
with the quick divination some women pos- 
sess, saw a new expression in Miss Chase’s 
gray eyes, as they rested on Billy Price 
across the room, that betokened good things 
for that hitherto unhappy youug man. 

Mrs. Signer’s carriage was announced, 
the guests were departiug though it was 
very early. 


TWO CHOEUS GIELS. 


57 


“Let your aunt go without you if she can- 
not stay,” pleaded Helen. “Come home 
with us for a little while ; I want to show 
5’ou my great-grandmother’s miniature. It 
exactly resembles you. Billy can drive you 
home in our carriage.” 

“Do not wait for me, Aunty,” said Ursula, 
“Mr. Price will bring me home,” and she 
flashed on him a smile that burned in a 
moment all the wreck of his past pain. 



MRS. GOLOBIEWSKY’S FIRST GOOD TIME. 

It was the season of watermelon rind, that 
is, in Cutter street, where all things took on 
peculiar phases according to the finances of 
the inhabitants. In other more favored 
places one spoke of the time of roses or of 
golden rod. In Cutter street, as Miss Car- 
rington thought with a little shudder, one 
time was as dreary and colorless as another, 
except when the pink and green rinds of 
watermelon littered the pavements and 
clogged the gutters. 

Alice Carrington rose from her writing 
table and looked out of the white curtained 
window of the College Settlement. The 
lifeless warmth of the air parched her face 
and made her dark eyes droop languidly. 
She thought regretfully, for a moment, of 
the summer she might have spent at home 
had she not consented to take the place of 
her friend. Miss Broomleigh, at the Settle- 
ment during the warm weather. 

When she looked from her own window 
( 58 ) 


Mils, golobiewsky’s fibst good time. 59 

at home in the Berkshire Hills, she saw vel- 
vet lawns softly touched with shadows of 
trees. Through their depths of dark foliage 
the sunlight filtered, leaving exquisite tra- 
cery on the green turf below. Long rows 
of asters nodded down the garden walks, 
and gladiolus spikes kept guard in gorgeous 
uniforms of flame. Upon the lawns the 
clumps of salvias waved in scarlet profusion, 
while above the splendid color, the lonelj’’ 
hush of the hills fell unbroken, but for gentle 
sounds of birds and bees that are more rest- 
ful than actual silence. 

But, at the Settlement, in Cutter street, 
the maddening noise never ceased ; no hush 
from early morning, when the first half- 
awake creature crawled out heavily to work, 
till the last reveller reeled home about the 
same hour; no rest for the ears and no color 
for the eyes save the tiny bed of scarlet 
geraniums in the little back yard of the Set- 
tlement. The scarlet geraniums in their 
bright bravery were a fitting t5"pe of the 
courage and enthusiasm of the workers, and 
even the visitors, such as Miss Carrington, 
rarely yielded to a dismal mood. The sweet 
cleanliness and happiness of the place spread 


60 MRS. golobiewsky’s first good time. 

such an aroma through the street that it 
rose above the poverty and sin. Yet this 
day Miss Carrington was depressed, for, 
coming in from an errand, she had spied a 
little half-blind child clinging to her sister 
and dragging herself across the pavement, 
with a curious backward motion in order to 
keep her eyes screened from the sunlight in 
her sister^s frock. Alice Carrington was 
more impressed by this little incident than 
she might have been by a greater calamity, 
in which suffering childhood bore no part, 
and the pit5dng pain in her soul rose over 
hope like the sound of a hautboy moaning 
out suddenly above the glad notes of violins. 

She turned back to her writing table re- 
solved not to ask her parents’ permission to 
stay all winter till further trial had tested 
her endurance. Instead she told her mother 
of her various employments, the chief of 
which was the training of the older girls of 
the neighborhood who were taken into the 
house, one at a time, to learn something of 
the lighter sorts of housework. 

“How would you like, mother,” she 
wrote, “to spend your days in the perpetual 
training of new house-maids? I remember 


MRS. GOLOBIEWSKY’s FIRST GOOD TIME. 61 

how you suffered from Lucretia’s gaucheries 
after Jenny was married. Yet when one 
sees the improvement in these girls, and in 
their own homes, the trouble of teaching 
them seems nothing.” 

The door opened violently, and the dark 
hair of Miss Carrington’s latest charge was 
thrust through the opening. ‘‘Miss Alice! 
oh, I forgot!” and the door closed again. 
A heavy knock followed. 

“Come in!” called Alice, smiling at this 
farcical exhibition of newly found manners. 

“Please, Miss Alice, they want you to go 
to Golobiewskys to tell the missus that 
Bekki and Maxi can have a Country Week.” 

Alice closed her portfolio, smiling at the 
pretty little Eussian J ewess. “That is nice, 
Sophie. I am sure their mother will be 
very glad.” 

“I don’t know,” said Sophie, dubiously. 
“I think Bekki’s mother hates her. She 
lams her terrible ’cause she’s so dumb.” 
Sophie’s foreign birth had left no trace upon 
her speech, -which was the purest American 
as known in the slums. With a sort of ad- 
miring awe she watched Alice pin her dainty 
rose-trirnmed hat upon her pretty hair. It 


62 MRS. golobiewsky’s first good time. 

was the system of the Settlement to elevate 
the poor by showing the right way to do 
things, and in matters of dress they followed 
good models, instead of assuming a uniform ; 
so Alice had almost as charming a summer 
trousseau with her in Cutter street as her 
sisters had taken to Newport and Bar 
Harbor. 

She saw a tinge of wistfulness in Sophie’s 
long oriental eyes, as they met her’s in the 
glass, and dispelled it into brightness bj^ 
saying, “Now, you may pick a few flowers 
to put on the supper- table.” 

The children of the poor love flowers better 
than any earthly things, and to touch them 
is their greatest joy, so Sophie clattered 
down stairs joyously and Alice went on to 
the house of Bekki’s mother. She had 
never seen the woman, though the child was 
well known to her. Strict home-keeping 
and reticence characterize the J ewish women , 
and only through the children can they be 
reached. 

Mrs. Grolobiewsky lived at the end of a 
court opening off Cutter street. It was 
more roomy than most of the courts in the 
neighborhood, and had a brick pavement 


MBS. GOLOBIEWSKY’S FIKST GOOD TIME. 63 

about twelve feet wide, down the middle of 
which the drainage ran. The little tene- 
ments on either side consisted of two or 
more rooms. 

Bekki’s mother lived with her husband 
and three children in two rooms not more 
than nine feet square each. Amiability is 
largely dependent on elbow-room, and 
Bekki’s stupidity might have escaped her 
mother’s wrath if it had displayed itself on 
a larger field. 

The woman stood ironing by an open 
window. A table, a small stove, and two 
or three chairs were all the furniture the room 
contained ; across the corner two pine shelves 
concealed with a calico curtain the family 
larder. A very thin , black-eyed baby wailed 
softly by the door. He lay in a battered 
baby carriage which had been bought second- 
hand, and served as cradle and coach for 
successive infant Grolobiewskys. 

“How is the baby?” asked Miss Carring- 
ton, with well judged abruptness. An in- 
troduction or preamble does not in Cutter 
street smooth the way to better acquaintance, 
but, on the contrary, produces a chilling 
ormality. 


Gi Mils, goloeiewsky’s fikst good time. 

'‘lie is seeck, vair seeck/’ said the mother 
indifferently. “It is ze heat. MyMaxivas 
so ; ze doctor say 'zat child vill die! ’ Ven zo 
cold came ze doctor come back and say, 'Grott 
mein! iss zat Maxi? Iss he alive yet? Gott 
mein! ’ ’’ 

Alice looked with curiosity at the speaker, 
who was, in many ways, quite unlike the 
other heavy, dark Hebrew-women of the 
neighborhood. Mrs. Golobiewsky was very 
thin and spare. She had dark reddish hair, 
of the color called Titian, that would have 
been beautiful but for its roughness. Her 
eyes were likewise reddish brown, and her 
skiu a pale brickdust color; her nose was 
straight; her lips thin. The type, though 
unfamiliar to Miss Carrington, is not un- 
common among the Hebrews of southern 
and central Europe were about fifteen per 
cent of the race are blonde. Her language 
was a compound of broken German and 
“dago’’ dialect, as she had picked it up 
from her neighbors of Little Italy. 

“You are not Russian?” asked Alice, 
tentatively. 

“No, I am Sherman; mine man ho iss 
Russian Shew; he spik Russian, I no under- 
stand; we spik Showish.” 


MES. GOI^OBIEWSKY’s FIEST GOOD TIME. 65 

‘‘I came to tell you/’ said Alice, ‘‘that 
Bekki and Maxi may have a Country Week. 
Will you get them ready to go day after to- 
morrow?” 

Her kind eyes rested expectantly on Mrs. 
Golohiewsky’s face, awaiting the customary 
burst of gratitude; for the mothers are 
usually more voluble in thanks than the 
children themselves, who take their favors 
gravely as becomes the children of many 
disappointments. 

As Alice waited the brickdust color in the 
Jewish woman’s face deepened angrily, her 
eyes shot out little sparks, her lips tightened, 
she burst forth: “I do not see how you do 
efryzing for ze children ! zey must hef goot 
time ! I haf nelf er hat one goot time in my 
whole life! ” 

She turned in a very majesty of rage, and 
whirling towards the window took up her 
ironing again. 

Miss Carrington felt stunned with sur- 
prise, and could not briug herself to break 
the angry sullenness in which Mrs. Golo- 
biewsky had wrapped herself. But when 
she returned to the cleanly comfort of the 
College Settlement, she found it difficult to 


66 MRS. golobiewsky’s first good time. 

keep her miiid attuned to that pitch of com- 
plaisant optimism which is considered proper 
for the benevolent in the present age. 

Ill her mind rang the melancholy refrain, 
“I haf neffer hat one goot time in my whole 
life.” There had been an emphasis in the 
voice which left no room for reservation or 
fault of memory. The woman’s probable 
history rose in a vision : the sad childhood 
in Little Russia, with hunger, fear, oppres- 
sion, persecution; the early enforced mar- 
riage arranged by the village agent of mat- 
rimony, in which even the love-making that 
other women find pleasure in is absent ; the 
pains and cares of motherhood were hers 
without the joys; for privation had killed 
five of her eight children, and the others were 
frail; Bekki, the httle girl, was almost 
feeble-minded, and could not earn what 
many of her little neighbors did by sewing 
buttons on coats for the sweating shops. 
There was only the misery of poverty and 
exile in every direction. 

Alice Carrington had the nervous, imag- 
inative temperament of the New England 
woman ; the sorrows of others were as real 
to her as her own could be, and the indignant 


MRS. GOLOBIEWSKY’s FIRST GOOD TIME. 67 

pain of the Jewish woman pressed insistently 
upon her brain and heart. 

She went once or twice up the court to 
arrange for the children’s outing, but the 
mother maintained a gloomy silence, as if her 
first outburst was regretted. Golobiewsky 
himself had been out of work some time, 
and he carried the sick baby up and down 
the Settlement garden, while the work of 
the woman provided their scanty food. 

The evening of the day that Bekki and 
her brother went to the country Alice sat in 
the hall reading, her window open into the 
garden. She watched Grolobiewsky and 
liked his face; she liked also his care of the 
baby. He walked gently and dreamily, as 
if the noise around him did not reach his 
ears. Two boys were playing with a creaky 
bicycle. “When you’re on it you say it’s 
all yours, and when I’m on it you say it’s 
half yours,” shrieked one, indignantly. 
Alice smiled half-sadly, thinking that the 
equity of Cutter street was not unlike that 
of the world beyond. 

The thought that while one portion of 
humanity has most of the enjoyment the 
rest must suffer brought again the Hebrew 


68 MRS. GOLOBIEWSKY^S FIRST GOOD TIME. 

woman to her mind. In a sudden flash of 
thought, she said to herself, “I will take her 
to the country myself for a day, and see if 
she cannot have ^one good time.’ ” 

If Mrs. Golobiewsky was flattered by Miss 
Carrington’s invitation her exterior manner 
did not betray it. When the morning of 
their excursion came, Alice found her chosen 
companion transformed as much for the 
better by the dignified satisfaction of her 
demeanor as she was for the worse by the 
change in her garb. She had discarded her 
usual picturesqueness of faded calico and 
head kerchief for a hideous gown, of cheap 
woollen material, and a gaudy bonnet 
decorated with wax cherries. 

Their destination had received careful con- 
sideration. Miss Carrington’s first impulse 
had been to go to the farm where Bekki and 
Maxi were, but on second thoughts she de- 
cided that it would not add to the first good 
time to be reminded of maternal possibili- 
ties. “I shall try the experiment of letting 
her alone. I shall not even try to entertain 
her. I' think we will go out to Baidram’s 
Gardens, as I want to see them myself. It 
will show how much capacity for enjoyment 
she possesses.” 


MRS. GOLOBIEWSKY’s FIRST GOOD TIME. 69 

Their road led them by horse-car through 
a narrow street filled by small shops. At 
night this district was rather picturesque, a 
sort of Tottenham Court Eoad, lighted by 
flaring gasoline jets, in whose flickering glare 
gaunt skeletons of men’s and women’s 
clothes swung dreaiily on creaking frames, 
as though hung for crimes of misfit. In the 
daylight the street was simply crowded and 
squalid. The shop- windows were jammed 
with cheap goods and trashy finery, and on 
every block glittered the three gold balls, 
monuments over the spots where lie the 
buried treasures of the poor. 

Within the horse-car a common poverty 
put all on familiar footing, and if anything 
happened to cause comment the conversa- 
tion became general. 

“H’much d’ye pay for peaches?” asked 
the old woman who sat next to Miss Carring- 
ton, peering into her luncheon basket. After 
the cars left the populous districts, and 
reached the open country, Alice found a 
fascination in watching the awakening in- 
terest in her companion’s face. 

A country lane led to the orchard back of 
the old mansion, and no sooner had their 


70 MRS. golobiewsky’s first good time. 

steps slakened into the meditative pace of 
sightseers than the Semitic intelligence of 
Mrs. Golobiewsky awoke, and she poured 
out a flood of questions regarding their sur- 
roundings. ‘‘Yes, the house is very old, 
much more than a hundred years old. The 
man who built it did so with his own hands. 
He loved trees and flowers so much that he 
came far away from the homes of other men 
and lived alone. Can you understand that, 
Mrs. Golobiewsky?” 

“Yes, I vould like zat; but you mus’ not 
call me mine man’s name. I am Anulka.” 

“Very well,” said Alice, pleased at her 
friendliness. “See, Anulka, over the win- 
dow he carved in the stone those words: ” — 

“ ‘Tis God alone, Almighty Lord, 

The only one by me adored.’ ” 

“All!” said Anulka, “he vas a Shew, he 
b’lieve in Gott. You b’lieve in Gott? Zat 
iss goot; ve muss all pray. Gott makes 
seeck, he makes life.” She spoke with a 
warmth that suggested the religious enthusi- 
ast, and continued : “To-morrow iss a strong 
day for us; iss it strong day for you?” 

“I do not know what you mean by strong 
day,” said Alice, puzzled, yet greatly pleased 


MRS. GOLOBIEWSKY’s FIRST GOOD TIME. 71 

by Ainilka’s un-Hebrew desire to find com- 
mon religious ground between them. 

“It iss strong, because our New Year 
comes, and ve cannot eat all ze day, and ve 
pray in ze church from zeven o’clock till 
night. It is vaira strong day.” 

“You mean very important, I see; we do 
have such days, but to-morrow is not one of 
them. Now you may walk wherever you 
like. I am going to sit here and read a 
little.” 

But Miss Carrington found her book less 
interesting than watching her companion, 
who seemed as much at home in the old- 
fashioned garden as if she, like its founder, 
John Bartram, had “had a propensity to 
botanicks from infancy. ” Was there in her 
a strain from same flower-loving Grerman ? 
or only the uncrushed rich nature of the 
Semites, whose glowing imaginations found 
the manifestations of the true God in the 
forces of nature, and who needed all the ter- 
rors of the law to keep them from worship- 
ping, like surrounding nations, on the hills 
and in the groves of Palestine. The peasant 
woman touched the blossoms gently; she 
pressed back the thick branches of the box- 


72 MRS. golobiewsky’s first good time. 

trees, letting them loose suddenly, and lis- 
tened in apparent delight to the little splash- 
ing sounds of the leaves. She “scuntled,’’ 
as the Scotch say, through the fallen leaves 
with the pleasure of a child. At noon Alice 
found her sitting on a bench down by the 
river, in the shadow of some silver beeches, 
sitting so quietly that a chicken scratched 
the earth unruffled, at her feet. The air 
was very still ; occasionally rose the cry of 
“ watermelon r’ from the river as the boat- 
men caught sight of pleasure parties on the 
shore. In the distance some vessels were 
loading and one could faintly discern their 
foreign flags. Anulka gazed at them ear- 
nestly, and Alice said, ‘AVould you like to 
go back? away from America?” 

“I am glad I am here, vaira glad; ze Rus- 
sians are bad, make like ze devil. It iss 
goot here.” 

“And do you not like the water, either, 
Anulka? I am going to row for a little 
while in one of those little boats. Would 
you like to come?” 

“I vill go,” said Anulka, “if you go, but 
ze Shews do not like ze water. Dagoes are 
on ships, but Shews neffer.” 


MRS. GOLOBIEWSKY’s FIRST GOOD TIME. 73 

‘^Do not come then/’ said Alice kindly, 
‘‘I shall not be gone long.” When she re- 
turned to the bench Mrs. Golobiewsky was 
finishing the last of the parcel of luncheon 
she had brought with her. Miss Carrington 
opened her own luncheon basket and said 
doubtfully, “I do not know your customs 
very well, but cannot you take some of this? 
The bread and cake came from a Hebrew 
bakery, and here is some fruit.” 

Anulka brightened and said quickly, 
‘‘Ah! ve vill eat and zen ve vill alvays be 
goot friends,” and her evident enjoyment 
was not lessened by “the pale spectrum of 
the salt.” 

The day wore on ; the air was very sweet 
in the quaint dusky tangle of the old garden ; 
the aromatic perfume of rare shrubs mingled 
with the pleasant smell of the rich earth. 
There was none of the fatiguing regularity 
of modern gardens, for everything was 
planted just where it would grow best, and 
the result was a delightful confusion, resem- 
bling in luxuriance and unconventionality 
the natural loveliness of the wild wood. 

Alice sketched and read, or sat and 
watched her companion. She wondered 


i 


74 MRS. golobiewsky’s first good time. 

greatly at her contented idleness, and mar- 
velled that a woman of no mental resources 
could so easily let slip her cares. She also 
wondered what was passing in the depths of 
the woman’s soul, but the garrulity of the 
morning had ceased, and she sat idle as a 
child weary of play. 

The whistle of a steamboat on the river 
below and Alice said, “I think we must go 
home.” The light faded on Anulka’s face. 
She rose slowly and walked on with dragging 
steps. At the end of the orchard she turned 
and looked back for a moment, then she 
shook herself with a little shudder, like a 
dog coming out of the water. She turned 
and looked at Miss Carrington ; a little flame 
leaped into her eyes, and a flush ran over 
her face, like the glow of the sun before it 
drops into the darkness of the hills; she 
said, “I haf hat one goot time,” and went 
on in silence. 



A VICTORY OF OUR LADY. 

Sister Gabriella, tlie superior of St. 
MichaePs hospital, turned uneasily on the 
high office stool which stood in front of her 
desk, — put her hand to her forehead, opened 
her mouth slightly as if to speak, and then 
remained silent, blushing a little, and looked 
at the young Protestant resident physician. 
Dr. Warner had been in the hospital for 
three months, and in that time had revised 
his former Presbyterian prejudices against 
Catholics so far as to place Sister Gabriella 
and her Community at the head of his list 
of ‘‘sensible women.’’ He stared amazedly 
at her manifest strange confusion, for which 
nothing in the surroundings gave reason. 
The office was as quiet as a church yard, 
everything in its place, the little maid who 
tended the door slipped silently to and fro, 
the pictures of various benefactors of the 
institution gazed down benignantly from 
the walls, the busts of Galen and Aesculapius 
stared fixedly from carven eyelids. The 

( 7 . 5 ) 


76 


A VICTORY OP OUR LADY. 


only changed thing in the room wns t]:e 
varying color and lack of crisjp decision in 
the Sister Superior. 

Finally Dr. Warner gave voice to his 
surprise. 

‘‘Sister, what is the matter r’ 

Sister Grabriella showed some relief at his 
taking the initiative. She drew a large 
packet of letters from a pigeon hole of the 
desk and held them towards him. 

“What do jmu think of tlieseT’ she asked. 

The letters all looked exactly alike on the 
outside, being addressed in a clear round 
feminine hand to Private Harry Martin, — 
Ohio Volunteers. 

Dr. Warner shook his head. “That boy 
will never read them; he is going to die. 
His pulse has not gone below 120, and he 
seems to have no constitution. I do not see 
how ho ever passed the entrance examina- 
tions.’’ 

“I am afraid he can not live,” said Sister 
Gabriella, and so I think someone ought to 
read these letters. Perhaps his mother is 
breaking her heart over him, or” with again 
that delicate blush, “someone else.” 

“It is not his mother,” said the doctor. 


A VICTORY OF OUR LADY. 


77 


‘‘The women of the last generation did not 
write that sort of hand. Perhaps his sister, 
or maybe ‘a nearer yet and a dearer one.’ ” 
Then, somewhat quizzically, he added, “I 
really think you ought to read them, Sister. ’ ’ 

“Please do it,” answered Sister Gabriella, 
quite embarrassed at the idea of reading a 
packet of love letters. “Open the last ones 
first, and see if there is anything we really 
ought to answer.” 

Dr. Warner cut open the latest letter and 
turned to the signature. It was not from 
the young soldier’s sister, evidently, for it 
read, “Yours lovingly, alwa5^s, 

Jessie Turner.” 

He glanced hastily over the pages and 
then said, “I think you are right. Sister, 
and we ought to answer this. The young 
lady is evidently a trained nurse, for she 
says, ‘They say no news is good news, but 
Harry, I cannot think why you let all my 
letters go unanswered when you know how 
anxious I am about you. I hear that your 
regiment is scattered about among different 
hospitals and camps, and that numbers of 
the men have typhoid fever. I cannot go 
to the new case that Dr. Young has for me 


78 


A VICTORY OF OUR LADY. 


till I know that you are all right. Do, do 
get someone to write for yon, to tell me how 
and where you are.’ ” 

Sister Gab riella’s air of hesitation dropped 
from her like a cloak and she was at once 
her own capable self. “We will telegraph 
at once to the young lady, and since the 
Major is urging us to take some more 
soldiers, perhaps this girl would like to come 
here, and while she is looking after Martin 
Miss Harris can take a few new ones. ’ ’ She 
bent over her desk again to write out the 
telegram, while Dr. Warner looked approv- 
ingly at her fine head, whose outlines were 
not marred by the stiff cornette which makes 
so many look wan and ghastly. 

Dr. Warner had a bald head, in spite of 
his manifest lack of years. He had also a 
clever, inquisitive face and an abrupt man- 
ner which sometimes jarred the nerves of 
the patients, as much as his pre-conceived 
opinions as to the management of Catholic 
hospitals had jarred the Sisters. These 
prejudices had been dispelled during his 
three months of residence, and the atmos- 
phere of religious calm was a matter of great 
satisfaction to him, especially when he con- 


A VICTORY OF OUR LADY. 79 

trasted it with the bustling confusion of 
some of the other hospitals he sometimes 
visited. At St. Michael’s there were no 
flighty young probationers hanging over the 
stairways flirting with the doctors, as he had 
often seen them at the Aesculapian Hospital. 
Even the sudden incursion of the poor fever- 
stricken soldiers from the camps had scarcely 
disturbed the smooth routine of the place. 

A day or so after the telegram had been 
sent to Miss Turner, Dr. Warner stopped in 
the office for the notes of a case in which he 
was specially interested, and found the little 
doorkeeper ushering in a young girl whoso 
bright brown eyes stared about her with a 
mixture of anxiety and fear. 

She was a lovely creature, even while un- 
lovely worry twisted the delicate lines of 
brow and lips. Her hair was not tousled 
into an untidy mass resembling a fur floor 
rug, which fashion decreed to be the proper 
thing, that summer of the Spanish war, but 
its natural beauty escaped from confining 
pins in little rings around her pretty ears 
and throat. She was slight, yet not fragile, 
and was much more refined and intellectual 
than the majority of her professional sisters. 


80 


A VICTOKY OF OUE LADY. 


Dr. Warner felt surprise that so dainty a 
creature had chosen the hard profession of 
nursing, for he at once concluded that it 
must be Miss Turner, since she eagerly 
asked how Martin was. 

“Very ill,’’ said Dr. Turner, gravely, “and 
you must be very courageous. You will be 
of no use if you show so much nervousness. ” 

“Oh, it is not that,” cried the girl. “I 
have always felt that he would die! But to 
have him in this dreadful place!” She 
gave a little gasping sob, and looked at him 
with a heart broken gaze. 

“What do you mean!” exclaimed Dr. 
Warner. 

“Oh, I am so afraid of Catholics,” she 
said, her eyes running around the room as 
if fearing to find instruments of torture, nor 
did the very matter-of-fact appearance of 
the office seem to reassure her. 

“How foohsh you are!” said the doctor, 
with wholesome sternness. “Are you really 
a trained nurse, and so behind the rest of 
the world, with old fashioned prejudices? 
This is a first class hospital, with all the best 
modern appliances, and the sisters are lovely 
women wffio have taken every care of your 


A VICTOEY OF OUE LADY. 


81 


friend. Now go and find the head nurse, 
and overcome your terrors, so that you may 
be of some use.” 

Jessie Turner took the doctor^s little 
scolding as a tonic, and when she had 
changed her travelling gown and was shown 
into the ward where Martin lay, still dehri- 
ous, she went calmly to the head of the bed, 
read the record of the case, and began her 
new duties without showing any undue 
emotion. 

Martin was most of the time in a low, 
muttering delirium, and at no time appeared 
to recognize Miss Turner, hence she could 
only attend to him as a nurse, and thus had 
time to look after the other cases near her 
own ‘^special”. There was a golden-haired 
lad who made all the sentimental lady visi- 
tors recall the old verses about ‘ 'somebody’s 
darling”. He was the pet of all the nurses, 
yet never seemed to appreciate anyone’s 
attentions so much as Jessie’s. Then there 
was on the other^ side of Martin’s cot a 
young Irishman, one of the irrepressible 
kind. He was ill enough to have the ice 
cap on his head all the time, and suffered 
from a low teasing fever, yet never com- 


82 


A VICTORY OP OUR LADY. 


plained. Jessie said to him one day, “I 
think you are one of the sort angels are 
made of,’^ and he answered, “Oh, no, 
nurrse, but the nixt time ye go to the jewel- 
ler’s please take me crown and get a few 
more dimonds put in it!” Jessie laughed 
and filled the ice cap at once. 

One day Martin came to consciousness, 
but without recognizing Jessie. He lay 
with a sick man’s fretful frown on his thin 
face, and she asked him gently, “What is 
the matter?” 

He spoke feebly, “Every bed in this ward 
has a bag hanging to it except mine. What 
are they for, and why haven’t I one?” 

“They were brought here one day by 
some of the ladies. You were too ill to say 
whether you wanted one or not. I am 
taking care of all your letters and other 
things for you.” 

Jessie did not explain that, like so many 
of the poor soldiers who were brought to 
the hospitals that summer, all of his little 
possessions, his watch, sleeve buttons and 
pocket book, had been stolen from him. 
He did not seem satisfied, but lay brooding, 
with a sick man’s unreasonableness on the 


A VICTOEY OF OUE LADY. 


83 


want of a little calico bag, so that Jessie 
overcame her dread of the Sisters and went 
down to the office. 

Dr. Warner had explained to Sister 
Gabriella Jessie’s great dread of Catholics, 
which the Sister could understand, as she 
had herself come from a town in northern 
Ohio, one of the most bigoted districts in 
the country. Therefore she received her 
kindly, listening with an amused smile to 
her account of Martin’s fretting for a bag 
to hang on his cot. “It is just a sick 
notion,” she said, “but he must be hu- 
mored.” Then, seeing a tired look on the 
girl’s face, she added, “Tell Miss Harris to 
take your place for an hour or two, so that 
you may take a walk in the fresh air, away 
from the sight of sick people.” 

Jessie thanked her timidly, and as it was 
Sunday morning, she thought she would 
show the Catholic nurses that she had not 
been influenced in any way by their religion, 
by going to her own church, and finding 
that there was one within a short distance, 
took her way thither. 

She had grown up in a little country 
town, and had scarcely left it except during 


84 


A VICTOEY OF OUE LADY. 


the busy period of her training for nursing. 
Hence she had had few opportunities to hear 
a service in a wealthy Eastern church, and 
was not prepared for the beauty of the 
building and the elaborateness of the ser- 
vices. There was a fine quartette choir, 
with a soprano of surpassing sweetness, who 
sang Handel’s ‘‘Come unto me” like an 
angel of the heavenly host. The choir was 
hidden behind a screen of palms, so that 
their frivolous conversation and irreverent 
joking was not perceived by the congrega- 
tion. Yet Jessie did not feel her heart lifted 
up by the service, though she struggled 
with her inattention. There was coldness 
and worldliness in the air, the rustle of silk 
linings, the delicate tinkling of jewelled 
chains and bracelets, the waving of feathery 
plumes, all of which distracted her. The 
complacency of the worshipers irritated her 
and she asked herself, “Is this the church 
of the poor, of the Carpenter’s Son?” 
Then she found fault with her own critical 
spirit, and as she had not held any conver- 
sation with anyone on religious matters 
since she went to St. Michael’s, she at- 
tributed her sudden distaste for her own 


A VICTORY OF OUR LADY. 85 

religion to some mnlign influence that 
seemed like witchcraft. 

Another week sliiiped by, and no change 
occurred in the condition of Private Harry 
Martin. Others of his comrades had rallied 
to promising convalescence, but no im- 
provement was noticed in him. Jessie grew 
miserably unhappy, and one night, as she 
heard sounds of lovely music coming from 
the chapel, she slipped in, with a latent 
expectation of fortifying her lagging Prot- 
estantism with a sight of the “idolatrous 
mummeries”, as she had been wont to call 
the ceremonies of the Church. She sat 
bolt upright in the back seat, never kneel- 
ing, looking on with rebellious feelings 
against the strange attraction she felt, es- 
pecially when the air became misty with 
incense, and the white cornettes of the Sis- 
ters looked like snowy butterflies floating 
in a haze of golden light. Struggling with 
the physical languor produced by the in- 
cense, and also with spiritual torpor, she 
slipped from the chapel, determining to go 
more often to her own church. The next 
Sunday she inquired the way to a smaller 
and plainer church, as she thought perhaps 


86 A VICTOKY OF OUR LADY. 

the other one was too fashionable to suit 
her taste. Though the sermon was long 
and the music poor, the plain little gray 
stucco church was similar to her own in 
Ohio, therefore the following week she 
started out to find it again. She thought 
she knew just where to find it, and asked 
no directions, but walked on in a dreamy 
mood, when seeing before her a plain gray 
stucco building, apparently exactly like the 
one she had visited before, she went in, 
though vaguely conscious of some difference 
in the arrangement of the stairs, and then 
was struck with amazement. Dazzled with 
a glow of light and color she sank into a 
seat, and gazed bewildered around her. 
She was in a Catholic church, and saw that 
the congregation was nearly all composed 
of colored people. In the left hand corner 
shone so brilliant a glory that the eye was 
irresistibly drawn there away from the 
bright and attractive high altar. Hundreds 
of candles burned before the wide marble 
side altar, which was covered with flowers 
and palms, arranged with excellent taste. 
Above all stood a gracious figure, crowned, 
dignified, holding by the hand a lovely 


A VICTORY OP OUR LADY. 87 

child who, smiling coufidently like a little 
prince, overlooked his loyal subjects. 

Jessie was too astonished to go away, and 
let one person after another enter the pew, 
unconsciously moving up to let them enter, 
in the usual polite way of Protestants, which 
we might with advantage introduce among 
Catholics. So she found herself enclosed 
so that it would have been awkward for her 
to leave. 

The sermon began in a pleasant voice 
vdth an unfamiliar accent that attracted her. 
She listened somewhat unwillingly to an 
account of the origin of the devotion to 
Our Lady of Victory. The name appealed 
to the fancy of a soldier’s sweetheart. So, 
too, the gracious queenliness of the statue 
was more attractive to a young girl than 
the melancholy image of the Mother of 
Sorrows. Jessie was a good modest girl 
herself, such as are often found outside the 
Church, to put to shame the foolish Catholic 
girls who toss away their precious innocence 
by reading bad books and papers, or the 
heedless frequenting of foolish and immoral 
plays. Therefore, being good herself, she 
rather took modesty for granted in others. 


88 A VICTORY OF OUR LADY. 

and so the contemplative girlish purity of 
the Immaculate Conception had not appealed 
to her. But Our Lady of Victory ! That 
was a name of inspiration ! Dreamily she 
listened to the words of the sermon ; through 
a mist of incomprehension she gathered 
that all the little tablets surrounding the 
shrine were placed there by grateful hearts, 
in sign of some favor which they attributed 
to the intercession of Our Lady of Victory. 
Vaguely groping amid warring ideas, she 
suddenly prayed, “0 Lady of Victory, if 
you have any such power, save poor Harry ! ’ ’ 
Then, terrified lest she had offered an idol- 
atrous prayer, she added, “Please, Our 
Lord, if it is wicked to pray to the Virgin, 
don’t let that prayer have any effect! ” 

Such a contradiction may seem very ab- 
surd to the settled mind of the “old Cath- 
olic”, but is not uncommon in the misty 
half-light of the rising of faith in the heart 
of one brought up in darkness. 

When Jessie returned to the hospital, 
Martin had come to consciousness, and Dr. 
Warner said to her, his sharp little face 
smiling, “Well, your soldier boy may get 
well after all.” 


A VICTORY OF OUR LADY. 89 

Jessie paled a little as she asked, “Was 
there no hope beforeT’ 

“Not till this morning,’’ answered the 
doctor, “but he has taken a sudden turn. 
There is plenty of hope now.” Then he 
hurried on his rounds, leaving her to strange 
thoughts. 

Those who know nothing of the strange 
sweet ways that the Holy Ghost has of 
leading human souls, cannot understand 
them when described in detail. Those who 
are familiar with them can imagine the re- 
mainder of the story. Private Harry Mar- 
tin steadily imjDroved, recovering his for- 
merly bright and reasonable spirit, and was 
finally discharged to return to the position 
in his native town from which the war had 
called him. But before he went Jessie had 
held many quiet talks with him, and both 
had begun regular instructions to be re- 
ceived into the Church. Jessie stayed at 
St. Michael’s, till Martin should have his 
home ready. She received the doctrines of 
the Church with the docility so noticeable 
in the Blessed Virgin’s converts, and when 
she finally went away to her new little 
Catholic home, one of her most cherished 


90 


A VICTOEY OF OUB LADY. 


possessions was a pretty statue of Our Lady 
of Victory for the little shrine, where she 
desired always to lay all the joys and sor- 
rows of her coming life. 



IN THE SHADOW OF THE CREIZKER. 


Across Eoscoff Bay the afternoon siin 
enclosed in a golden haze the faint outlines 
of the Isle de Batz. Down below the mas- 
sive granite seawall the shore was piled 
irregularly with rough wet stones, among 
which barefooted children played. Out in 
the quiet harbor fishing boats with red- 
brown sails lay idly rocking in the breeze. 

Miss Drayton stopped on the broad sea- 
wall and looked around her in silent 
pleasure. 

“How delightful to be absolutely alone,’’ 
she thought. “I must be a surly creature, 
for everything seems infinitely more beauti- 
ful to me when no one says it is beautiful. 
The brightest sunset sky turns dull when 
Aunt Morris becomes ecstatic over its 
brilliance.” 

Walking slowly, and attentive only to the 
view, she came, unobservantly, upon an 
artist sketching. As he turned, and their 
( 91 ) 


92 IN THE SHADOW OF THE CEEIZKEE. 

glances met, he flushed, and a look of sur- 
prise flamed in his blue eyes. 

‘‘Mr. Van Riel,’’ she exclaimed, “what a 
strange meeting! I thought you had gone 
home to Belgium.” 

“And I thought you were going through 
the Tyrol.” 

“I told you so in June, but Aunty, you 
know, is a modern Athenian, always ‘de- 
sirous of some new thing’ ; so by the time 
she had read up the Tyrol in the guide- 
books, she no longer wished to see it, and 
took a fancy to come here instead.” 

“Brittany is not new,” said Van Riel. 

“No, but this northern corner is very 
curious, and there are not many Americans, 
you know. Aunty likes foreigners, and at 
present she is quite in her element, for she 
can understand neither Breton nor Breton 
French.” 

“Are you staying in Roscoff, Miss Dray- 
ton?” 

“No, we are at Saint Pol-de-Leon. But 
my aunt has gone to-day to the Pardon of 
Folgoet, so I came here alone.” 

“Why didn’t you go with her?” 

“I go? never!” she said laughing. “I 


IN THE SHADOW OF THE CREIZKER. 93 

do not like crowds, and there will be prob- 
ably twenty thousand people, for every 
able-bodied person within twenty miles will 
be there. I cannot ride ten miles in a farm- 
wagon and sleep out doors with any enjoy- 
ment.” 

‘‘I am glad you came here,” said Van 
Riel, looking thoughtfully at her. She was 
not a beauty, certainly. Her figure was too 
slender, yet suggested a youthful elasticity. 
Her hair had no warm lights but was soft 
and dusky. Her mouth was large but sweet 
and firm, and her beautiful teeth did not, 
as Hugo says, “spoil fine eyes”. Hers were 
fine, though green-grey in color, — because 
of a wistfulness and purity of expression 
almost childlike. Not a beauty, not irre- 
sistible, perhaps, to the mass of mankind. 
If however you began to like her, defects 
no longer counted; she became a fascinat- 
ing kaleidoscope of opposing characteristics. 
“Jocelyn is a fatal disease,” her friends 
sometimes said, smiling, “do not take her, 
if you wish to get rid of her again. ” Adrian 
Van Riel felt this, and saw that in spite of 
a summer spent in trying to forget her, she 
was still his heart’s desire. 


94 IN THE SHADOW OF THE CEEIZKEK. 

Theirs had been a sudden steamship ac- 
quaintance, yet the swift trip of the City of 
Paris had given time for the impetuous 
nature of Van Riel to form a permanent 
attachment, the more intense because it was 
the first of his life. He was past forty years 
of age, but hard work and natural shyness 
had kept him out of society, and he had 
preserved a boyishness of manner which 
both attracted and repelled J ocelyn Drayton ; 
attracted, because it betrayed him into 
flashes of resentment if she opposed his 
opinions. “You are positively mediaeval, 
Mr. Van Riel, in your directness. Cannot 
you learn some modern policy?” she asked 
him sometimes. She was herself a most 
complex of moderns, who believed nothing 
or did not realize it if she did. She was 
very self-distrustful and did not easily be- 
lieve that others cared for her, so when 
Van Riel asked her to marry him she 
promptly refused. 

Meeting him again did not embarrass her 
as it might have done many women. She 
regarded him attentively ; the new environ- 
ment became him. The open stretch of 
shore made a fine setting for his strong 


IN THE SHADOW OF THE CREIZKER. 95 

well-built figure, which seemed too large on 
the cramped quarters of the ship’s deck. 
A white flannel yachting suit set off his 
warm blonde coloring, and accented the 
look of cleanliness which one sometimes 
calls English. He was, however, Flemish, 
and a slight tinge of foreignness added 
piquancy to his otherwise perfect speech. 

Miss Drayton became conscious that his 
voice had haunted her all summer. She 
was very sensitive to voices, and this one 
was beautiful in the depth of its vibrations. 
She noticed the strong chiseling of forehead 
and chin, the frank, proud eyes, and thought 
certainly he was not a friend of whom to be 
ashamed. 

“Where are you staying, Mr. Van Riel, 
and tell me how you happened to come 
here?” she asked as he put up his sketch- 
book and turned with her towards the 
village. 

“I have been cruising with a friend among 
the Channel Islands, and he put me off the 
yacht here to sketch the little chapel. I had 
a commission to illustrate a life of Mary 
Stuart, and this spot where she first stepped 
on the soil of her beloved France touched 
my fancy.” 


9G IN THE SHADOW OF THE CREIZKEE. 

“Poor little maid! ’’ said Jocelyn, “what 
a contrast to her melancholy farewell.” 

“Have you sympathy for her, Miss 
Drayton?” 

“0 yes; all ‘under dogs’ are cults of 
mine.” 

“I am glad,” said Van Riel, “that is 
womanly.” They walked through the vil- 
lage, past the old church, past the rows of 
little stone cottages with flowers and vines 
growing in window-boxes and around the 
doors. A charming little child ran shyly 
towards them, and Miss Drayton kept her 
talking while Van Riel sketched her. The 
time passed so rapidly that when Jocelyn 
took out her watch, saying, “It must be 
time for my train,” she saw that the last 
train for Saint Pol had already been gone 
for some minutes. 

“I will drive you over. Miss Drayton, if 
you will let me,” said Van Riel. “A thou- 
sand pardons. Monsieur,” said the pleasant 
landlady of the Hotel des Pigeons, “but I 
cannot get you a voiture. Every one must 
go to the Pardon and there is not a cart 
left in Roscoff.” 

“We shall have to walk. Miss Drayton. 


IN THE SHADOW OF THE CKEIZKEE. 97 

Can you manage it, do you think? It is 
only three miles.” 

‘‘Oh yes,” said Jocelyn, “I am not tired.” 

“Wait till I arrange to have my luggage 
forwarded,” said Van Eiel, and a few mo~ 
ments later they started along the white, 
dusty road. Over the high stone walls 
which shut in the road and divided the little 
farms from each other, could be seen low 
stone farm-houses which were lonely and 
deserted, except for an occasional old woman 
knitting by the door-step or saying her 
beads. The soil around Roscolf is very 
productive, richly alluvial and full of cal- 
careous matter very favorable to the growth 
of artichokes and other vegetables which 
are famous in Parisian markets. 

From a great distance they could see 
Saint Pol-de-Leon, its many towers and 
spires making it like a vast church set on a 
hill. It had been a populous and rich place 
in the middle ages, but the seat of the dio- 
cese was changed and the convents and 
churches of St. Pol were left empty, or 
quite deserted. As Van Riel and Miss 
Drayton entered it, they found the streets 
desolate. 


98 IN THE SHADOW OF THE CREIZKER. 

‘‘It is a city of the dead, Miss Drayton.’’ 

“No, indeed, you should see it on market 
mornings and not on the eve of the Pardon. 
Mr. Van Eiel, here is the Hotel de la Cloche. 
Ours is farther on towards the sea. There 
is a deadly rivalry between them.” 

“Then I will stop here, and we will com- 
pare their various merits afterwards.” As 
he left her in the courtyard of her hotel. 
Miss Drayton felt a serene satisfaction in 
the thought that her aunt had not returned. 
Mrs. Morris was a talkative, energetic 
woman, who, although she had relaxed 
somewhat the resolute chaperonage with 
which she had afidicted Jocelyn after her 
parents’ death, still asked questions for 
which Jocelyn did not always have a definite 
answer ready. She was very glad to have 
met Van Eiel again and did not wish to be 
forced to analyze her feelings. She put on 
a cool white gown for dinner, and after- 
wards sat down in the open courtyard near 
the tubs of oleander until Van Eiel appeared. 

“Your dead city is charming,” he said, 
“take me a walk before dark.” 

“To the cemetery? It is the quaintest 
place you ever saw,” said Miss Drayton as 
they started. 


IN THE SHADOW OF THE CREIZKEE. 99 

It was indeed a curious place, with a great 
Calvary towering above it, and the graves 
grotesquely ornamented with shells and ar- 
tificial flowers. 

‘^This is not unlike many country church- 
yards, IVIiss Drayton, except for these rows 
of little bird boxes, said Van Eiel. 

“Those are skull boxes,” she said, “aren’t 
they ghastly? After twenty years the 
graves are opened and the bones thrown 
into a large pit ; only the skulls are kept in 
this way. It is a common custom in the 
Cotes-des-Nord. Here is one labelled. She 
is not forgotten. ‘Philomene, aet. 21.’ 
Poor Philomene. I suppose some one loved 
her.” Jocelyn’s sweet mouth took on ten- 
der and thoughtful curves. 

“I fancy she would be kinder to her 
peasant lover than the modern young 
woman.” Van Riel’s eyes looked ironically 
at Jocelyn. 

“Oh! the modern young woman is as 
kind as the modern young man deserves,” 
she rejoined laughing. “Come, let us ask 
the sexton about Philomene.” 

The old man stood under the great out- 
stretched arms of the Calvary; the last 


100 IN THE SHADOW OP THE CEEIZKEK. 

strokes of the Creizker bell tolled the De 
Frofundis. 

As he turned towards them, Miss Drayton 
said, ‘‘You did not go to the Pardon?’^ 
“No, Mademoiselle, I have my work to 
do, but on September eighth my son will 
stay home and I will go to Eumengol.’^ 
“Have you been here long. Monsieur? 
A.nd do you know who Philomene was?’^ 
“Yes, Mademoiselle,’’ the old man said, 
“I have heard my mother tell the story 
many times. Philomene was Loic’s daugh- 
ter; Loic who walked at the head of the 
old men and led the Chanson in processions. 
Well, Philomene was beautiful, and Loic, 
he made much of her. You know, Made- 
moiselle, it is not good to give a young 
maiden her own way, and to let her wear 
her silver embroideries on common days. 
And Philomene was not like the fisher girls, 
for her father would not let her work, only 
to spin a little in the door. So when the 
young men went by, Philomene had always 
a merry word, and they liked her better 
than the other maidens who were busy in 
the house all day.” 

“The foolish young men,” said Jocelyn. 


IN THE SHADOW OF THE CREIZKEE. 101 

‘‘Yes, Mademoiselle, the heart is a poor 
guide, as Monsieur le Cure tells us. So 
there were two of all the many more bold 
than the rest. And one Loie favored, but 
Philomene liked Bran. He was tall and 
very strong and loved the fishing. His uncle 
had a great farm near Treguier and wished 
for Bran to till it, and promised to make 
him his heir, but Bran would not leave the 
fishing. He loved it, the wild sea, and 
spoke of it to Philomene till she was jealous 
of it. ‘Thou art beautiful, Philomene, but 
not more beautiful than the lady of the sea.' 
So when Loic said to Philomene, ‘Thou 
must marry lannik Marez, for he has gold 
and silver,’ she thought in her heart, ‘I will 
speak to Bran that he go to his uncle, and 
when he is rich my father will let me marry 
him.’ 

“Then the day of Corpus Christi came, 
and Bran was so fine to look at in his holi- 
day garments that Philomene could wait no 
longer. And when he began to speak of 
love, and asked, ‘When wilt thou wed me?’ 
the girl in her haste cried, ‘I’ll wed thee 
when thou wilt leave thy mistress the sea, 
and go to the farm.’ 


102 IN THE SHADOW OP THE CREIZKEK. 

‘‘ ‘That I cannot do, for my mother will 
not leave Saint Pol nor suffer me to leave 
her.’ 

“ ‘Then thou dost not love me, Bran, and 
I will not wed thee since thou lovest thy 
mother and the sea more than me.’ So cried 
she and left him in her wrath. Then le 
Bon Bleu showed what He thinks of angry 
partings, for the wind rose, and the night 
grew dark. Philomene sat frightened in 
her father’s house. In the morning they 
brought Bran up from the port of Penpoul 
and laid him, drowned, at his mother’s feet. 
And Philomene sat over on the rock at 
Penpoul long days together, and sang, “0 
Lady of the Sea, give him back. ’ ’ And one 
day she died. That was long ago. But 
Loic even then would not have her as other 
dead maidens, and marked her skull box 
with her name. The women wept when 
they passed it, and said more Aves for her 
than for others, because she died without 
her lover’s pardon, and you know. Made- 
moiselle, if your enemy does not forgive 
you it is hard to enter heaven.” 

‘ ‘ Do you hear that. Miss Drayton ? ’ ’ asked 
Van Kiel, as the sexton left them alone. 


IN THE SHADOW OF THE CEEIZKER. 103 

‘‘Take a lesson from Pliilomene, and do not 
send me away again.” 

“I shall not send you away,” she an- 
swered gently. “I am very glad to have 
you here and my friend.” 

“I want more than friendship,” urged 
Van Eiel, but meeting the cool kindly 
glance of her grey eyes he wisely forbore to 
follow the subject, preferring to keep the 
pleasure of her companionship rather than 
to risk another dismissal. 

Yet in the days that followed of idle so- 
journing in the pleasant drowsy town, days 
of sketching together in the shadow of the 
Creizker, of walks in country lanes, of sail- 
ing on Morlaix Bay, of soft sunsets in the 
sound of the vesper bell, a change came to 
Miss Drayton. Her aunt had found some 
English tourists whose energy equalled her 
own, and together they scoured the country, 
while Jocelyn took life more easily in Van 
RiePs sole company. Without quite under- 
standing her feelings, he became necessary 
to her enjoyment, and one day when he 
went on an alh day’s fishing trip, she found 
herself tortured by a new sense of restless- 
ness. It was the day of the pardon of 


104 IN THE SHADOW OP THE CREIZKER. 

Eumengol, and once more the streets were 
empty as on the day she met Van Riel at 
Roscoff. 

While she sat listlessly in the couidyard, 
a number of peasants came in and con- 
versed in low, excited tones with the land- 
lady. Jocelyn’s ear caught the words, “He 
is drowned! The brave man! It was 
Bellec’s little lass*, he saved her, but ah! 
the sad sight to see the strong man lying 
still! ” 

Miss Drayton felt a sickening fear at her 
heart, and though white and trembling, 
hurried toward them. 

“Who is drowned, Madame?” she asked. 

“They do not know. Mademoiselle. He 
is strange to St. Pol,” 

Turning from the shrewd eyes of the 
landlady Miss Drayton walked slowly from 
the 'court-yard of the inn, and found herself 
without reason wandering toward the 
Cathedral, hearing meanwhile as a melan- 
choly refrain the song of Philomene in the 
sexton’s legend, “0 Lady of the sea, give 
him back! ” 

The deep shadows and quiet of the noble 
arches soothed her mind, and while she 


IN THE SHADOW OF THE CKEIZKER 105 

waited there, the seats slowly filled for the 
Vesper service. The men sat together on 
one side, gay in their holiday suits of em- 
broidered velvet ; the women on the other 
with snowy caps fluttering like flocks of 
white doves. Their faces were seamed with 
poverty and toil, browned with hot suns, 
and parched with sharp wind-blasts from 
Northern seas, yet Jocelyn found them 
attractive from a certain dignified content- 
ment. The clergy came in procession up 
the isle, preceded by scarlet robed acolytes, 
while the sunset gloiy streamed through 
colored windows over the heads of the rev- 
erent worshipers. 

Then the people chanted vespers with the 
choir, using the Latin words easily as if 
they were dear and well known. And when 
the benediction of God descended upon the 
kneeling people. Miss Drayton felt in some 
strange way her distress fade away, as the 
last notes of the organ died upon her ear. 

Raising her eyes suddenly, she saw Van 
Riel standing under the south doorway 
waiting for her. She hurried toward him, 
surprise and joy struggling in her face. 
‘‘You are safe!’’ she exclaimed, “I heard 
that some one had been drowned.” 


106 IN THE SHADOV/ OE THE CBEIZKEE. 

“It was not said Van Eeal, adding 
tenderly, “did you care, then, dear?’^ 

What he read in her eyes illumined his 
face like the glowing sun shining above 
them on the beautiful carved spires of the 
Creizker, as they walked away together in 
the light of the sun-set sky. 


HOW THE PHONOGRAPH MADE A MATCH. 

It was not a real phonograph, you know, 
but dear little Polly, five years old, golden 
curled, with eyes like bits of sky. No one 
but the contracting parties themselves ever 
understood how much she had really to do 
with the affair. According to custom, she 
should have been with her brothers and 
sisters running around at their grandfather’s 
villa in the Berkshire Hills. 

That was the arrangement when Mr. and 
Mrs. Jack Van Zandt made up the yacht 
party for the Marianita. They asked Tom 
Saunders first of all, for sweet pity’s sake. 
He, poor fellow, was engaged to Mildred 
Lippe, Mrs. Jack’s cousin, who was ‘‘doing 
the grand in a distant land”. Tom’s con- 
stant but humble soul was fretted by her 
statistics of the beauty and size of German 
officers. And they asked, or rather Jack 
did (Mrs. Jack could not endure him), Mr. 
Creswell Terry. He had been on the other 
side ever since he and Jack left college, so 
( 107 ) 


108 HOW THE PHONOGRAPH MADE A MATCH. 

no one had yet found out what a flaneur he 
had become. Of course Jack’s sister, Miss 
Ethel Van Zandt, was going, in all the glory 
of her youthful beauty and white flannel 
yachting suit. She had been defrauded of 
every cruise before through some self-sacri- 
fice or other. So she really was not ready 
with a sigh of resignation when Mrs. Jack 
suddenly succumbed to her old foe, nervous 
prostration (no one wondered after her 
winter of symphonies and Ibsen), and was 
ordered to a rest cure. 

“It is really too dreadful,” wailed Ethel 
in family conclave, “for poor Sara to be 
sick just now.” 

“I do not see why you should not go with 
me,” said her brother. “The stewardess is 
as good a nurse as she is cook.” 

“Perhaps so,” demurred Ethel’s mother, 
‘ ‘but she is only plain Mrs. Crabb. It would 
seem different if Ethel had a feminine 
creature of her own class with her.” 

“Oh, if that is all,” cried Ethel joyously, 
“I’ll take Polly. Sara, you will lend me 
Polly for chaperon?” 

So, as Miss Van Zandt was quite irresist- 
ible when she gave her grey eyes the plain- 


HOW THE PHONOGRAPH MADE A MATCH. 109 

tiff’s brief, little Polly was sent from the 
Berkshire Hills to take the proud position 
of chaperon. She had cruised often with 
her parents and was a dependable little 
body, not hanging over railings or peering 
into forbidden mysteries. She even re- 
spected the magic circle of reserve drawn 
invisibly round the man at the wheel. 

They ran out of New York Harbor about 
ten o’clock one August morning. The day 
was sunny and fair and not too warm for 
comfort. All the party had been up the 
Sound many times, so they persuaded Van 
Zandt to lengthen the cruise by going out- 
side Long Island. ‘‘That will bring us into 
Newport by daylight,” said Ethel, “and so 
Mr. Travers will see Narragansett Bay to 
the best advantage.” 

Mr. Jim Travers was a last addition to 
the party. He was a Canadian, well-born 
and cultured, and had done Jack Van Zandt 
a good turn while hunting in Canada. So 
when Van Zandt met him in New York, he 
was glad to show him some courtesy in 
return, and asked him to go on the summer 
cruise. He seemed, however, a somewhat 
unpromising companion for the close inter- 


110 HOW THE PHONOGKAPH MADE A MATCH. 

course of a yacht. He was an oldish man, 
of medium build, with thick black curly 
hair, and bronzed complexion. Gloomy 
lines marked his forehead and the corners 
of his mouth. Mr. Travers kept by himself 
on deck and did not greatly notice Miss 
Van Zandt. Jack was consulting with the 
skipper; Saunders, in the cabin, scribbling 
a remonstrance to his fiancee. Miss Van 
Zandt found herself compelled to choose 
for companionship between the languid Mr. 
Terry and little Polly. She therefore turned 
to the latter, saying, “You are not talking 
so much as usual to-day. Phonograph.’’ 

“No, Aunty Eppel, I have a very in- 
digestible stomach to-day.” 

She was usually a good little sailor, and 
had a pair of steady sea-legs that would 
have done credit to a Viking’s daughter. 
But chaperons are always sea-sick, so Polly 
must imitate her fore-runners. She revived 
enough to ask for “bisticks” after Ethel 
and Terry had tucked her away in the little 
hammock swung for her on deck. 

“It is a pity Mr. Terry is so blase!” 
thought Ethel as she snapped her kodak at 
a passing ocean steamer. 


HOW THE PHONOGEAPH MADE A MATCH. Ill 

‘‘I suppose,” she said, with an arch little 
smile, “you are comparatively happy to-day, 
Mr. Terry. You can fancy you are going 
back to the other side. Why do you stay 
here at all?” 

“On the principle that a tired Indian 
carries a stone — to make me appreciate the 
other more when I get there,” he rejoined, 
looking with some interest at the rounded 
slenderness of her figure and the smiliug 
face. The sun shot under her blue cap’s 
trim, and turned to gold the rings of curly 
hair. A dash of mischief lurked in the 
little lines around her eyes ; a hint of co- 
quetiy in the lift of the lids ; her chin had 
a little stubborn set which melted into sweet 
and mirthful cuiwes around her mouth. A 
world of girlish reserves, dignities and fiip- 
pancies mingled in a charming incongruous 
whole. Mr. Terry regretted that this pleas- 
ing young person’s attention should wander 
from him and fix itself on Mr. Travers, who 
came into sight, pacing the deck. 

“What do you think of him?” she asked, 
as Terry’s eyes followed hers. 

“Oh? I fancy he’s a good fellow enough, 
but very grumpy.” 


112 HOW THE PHONOGEAPH MADE A MATCH. 

‘‘Grumpiness is a mistake. There is no 
sense in his looking such a curmudgeon. 
It is as easy to be pleasant as disagreeable.’’ 

“I fink,” said the phonograph from her 
rugs, “that he makes too many ankles in 
his forehead.” Miss Van Zandt felt a little 
pang of fear. She did not wish to speak 
uncharitably at any time, and certainly not 
before Polly. Her little tongue repeated 
with phonographic accuracy any remark 
that one would wish forgotten. “Alas! for 
you, little talking-machine, if you must 
ever give account of your idle words! ” her 
aunt would sometimes say. But now she 
distracted her attention by pointing out 
sheep in the soft white clouds above them. 

The yacht was steaming swiftly through 
the deep blue waters. The low shores in 
the distance showed shining patches of gol- 
den green or bluish tufts of deep woods. 
A light breeze from over the port bow 
splashed, now and then, a little shower of 
foam upon the white deck. The thin signal 
halyards beat a faint tattoo upon the mast. 
An occasional hiss of steam or clink of steel 
.on steel from the engine rooms alone re- 
vealed the power which propelled the yacht. 


HOW THE PHONOGEAPH MADE A MATCH. 113 

Else one might have fancied her a white 
sea-gull flying over the sunlit waves, so 
swift and smooth was her motion. A little 
shout of laughter drew Ethel and Terry for- 
ward where Jack and Saunders sat smok- 
ing. Polly caught Mr. Travers’ eye in his 
steady march backward and forward. 
“Come here, please, Mr. Fravers, I want to 
talk to somebody. Aunt Eppel’s dawn 
away.” 

It was an instance of great perspicacity 
on Polly’s part, — the choosing of Mr. Jim 
Travers for a companion. A silent listener 
was what she chiefly craved. He sat speech- 
less, blowing little rings from his cigar, 
which mingled with the smoke-puffs of the 
yacht and floated off to be lost in the white 
clouds beyond. As he listened to the 
child’s voice, and watched the slender baby 
hands pulling the curls around soft cheeks 
and chin, little threads of memoiy knit 
themselves together. Thus had his little 
child, long dead, talked to him with in- 
nocent confldence. He had tried to forget 
everything connected with that early life, 
saddened as it was by the memory of the 
cold-hearted woman who had been his wife. 

8 


114 HOW THE PHONOGRAPH MADE A MATCH. 

His crustiness w'as only the cicatrix over 
this old wound. And Polly drew him on 
to a brighter plane, so that at luncheon he 
was quite transformed, and entertained the 
others with stories of adventure in Canadian 
forests. Miss Van Zandt listened earnestly, 
smiling under long lashes into his sun- 
burned face. He was softening a little and 
turning toward her, when Polly, laying 
down her peach, interrupted with “I fink 
you eat pretty nicely, Mr. Travers. Aunt 
Eppel, I don’t see why you called him a 
crummy Jim.” With a direct appeal to her 
wretched aunt, she added, sternly, ‘‘Why 
did youP’ 

“I didn’t,” murmured Miss Van Zandt, 
with useless mental reservation. 

“Oh, yes! you did. You told Mr. Terry 
he looked like a crummy Jim, and he’s not 
making any crumbs at all. And you said 
it is just as easy to be pleasant as cross.” 

“It is much easier to be cross with you. 
Phonograph,” said her father. But Mr. 
Travers, in pity for Ethel’s blushes and the 
soft deprecation in her lovely eyes, came to 
the rescue with another hunting story. Mr. 
Creswell Terry found Miss Van Zandt rather 


HOW THE PHONOGEAPH MADE A MATCH. 115 

difficile that afternoon. She was not so 
young a girl that she admired ‘‘world-sick- 
ness’’. A young man may he very charm- 
ing in his own eyes when displaying the 
sawdust from his dissected doll, or rather, 
the hollow of his broken drum ; but he may 
be sure that women admire strength, action 
and reserve force. Miss Van Zandt was by 
no means a spoiled darling of fashion. She 
had read, had traveled, and had a latent 
fund of womanl}^ sweetness under her gay 
exterior ; a draft on it would be duly hon- 
ored if not cashed at sight. In her desire 
to obliterate Polly’s unfortunate speech 
from Mr. Travers’ mind, she became more 
charming than ever. He was surprised to 
find himself becoming interested. After 
dinner, as they sat on deck in the moon- 
light, some Italian sailors among the crew 
sang Santa Lucia and other folk-songs of 
Italy. The melodies mingled with the plash 
of waves against the vessel’s side. A sailor 
on the forecastle turned his head and, in a 
low distinct tone, warned the quarter-master 
at the wheel, “Grreen light on the starboard 
bow, sir.” A grunted “Ay, ay,” was the 
response. The musical note of the ship’s 


116 HOW THE PHONOGEAPH MADE A MATCH. 

bell rang out in coupled strokes, thrice re- 
peated, a single stroke following, leaving a 
sense of incompleteness on the ear. Seven 
bells! said Miss Van Zandt, ‘‘I did not 
think it was so late.’^ 

Her soft “good night” lingered in Tra- 
vers^ ear, a musical refrain throughout his 
dreams. The morning sun was shining as 
they drew near shore again. The wind 
freshened, and the sea broke into hillocks 
with here and there a crest of feathery foam. 
The white-washed Tower of Swallow-tail 
Light gleamed on the left as they approached 
The Narrows. A tug, plunging heavily at 
her hawser, dragged slowly three black and 
ugly coal-laden hulks. She blew from her 
whistle a cheery salute to the dainty yacht. 
Her pilot, leaning from his little window, 
pipe in mouth, waved his battered, grimy 
hat. 

“Nothing except misery,” said Travers, 
turning toward Miss Van Zandt, “promotes 
equality among men like the high seas.” 

“I suppose that is why discipline has to 
be the more strictly observed among sea- 
men. Is not this a beautiful coast?” 

On their right the smooth green lawns 


HOW THE PHONOGRAPH MADE A MATCH. Il7 

ran to the rocks which edged the water. 
On the left the picturesque ruins of an old 
fort kept useless watch from the green hill- 
top of Conanicut. Little pleasure parties 
in cat-boats were dashing to and fro around 
The Dumplings. The harbor was gay with 
bunting. The New York Yacht Club had 
come in within a few days, and several for- 
eign men-of-war towered majestically above 
the smaller craft. 

Newport was at the height of its brilliant 
•summer season. Invitations poured in on 
Van ZandCs party as soon as the Marianita 
anchored. There were garden parties at 
the villas on the cliff, dress parades at Fort 
Adams, dances on the British man-of-war, 
to which Mr. Travers’ English friends in- 
vited them. And the yacht in turn took 
large parties out to watch the races between 
the sailing yachts, or ran far out over the 
blue Atlantic. All this gayety brought back 
gloom to Mr. Travers. He and Polly, rele- 
gated to each other’s society, both felt the 
want of the same person, but only Polly 
spoke her reproaches openly. They spent 
most of their time together on the rocks or 
on deck, and he listened thoughtfully while 


118 HOW THE PHONOGRAPH MADE A MATCH. 

she Spun long stories out of her fanciful 
little head. 

One very warm morning the Marianita 
ran out to sea for some fresh air. Miss 
Van Zandt sat down listlessly by the ham- 
mock where Polly was swinging. Her spirits 
began to droop under the watchful gaze of 
Mr. Travers^ dark eyes. The phonograph 
was not very noisy that day, the heat made 
her drowsy. She lay with her little hands 
clasped above her head, looking into the 
blue sky. 

“Mr. Fravers,’’ she said, “once it was all 
dark and mussed up and there wasn’t any- 
fing. And Dod bedan to make fings. And 
he made the sky, and I’m sorry he ever did 
it too,” very mournfully. 

“Why, Polly*?” asked Aunt Ethel. 

“ ’Tause if he hadn’t, I could look right 
into heaven now, wouldn’t that be nice?” 
And the pretty eyes closed, and the little 
brain went wandering off into a world of 
innocent child dreams. Mr. Travers rose 
abruptly, took a few turns on deck, then 
returning, said, “Miss Van Zandt, I think 
I must go on to Boston to-night.” 

She looked at him in surprise. A little 


HOW THE PHONOGRAPH MADE A MATCH. 119 

flicker of regret crossed her face. ‘ ‘I thought 
you were to sail to Portland with us.” 

He hesitated, knocked the ashes ofl his 
cigar and said, ‘H had intended to, but I 
think I must go.” 

“I am very sorry,” she said, with gentle 
earnestness. “I suppose you will not tell 
your reason.” 

He laughed nervously. ‘Ht is like Polly’s 
complaint. I have had a glimpse right into 
heaven, but the sky has come between.” 

Something told her his meaning. “Do 
not go,” she said timidly, putting. out a 
pretty sunburned hand. 

“What,” he said, taking it quickly, 
“could you really care for an old cur- 
mudgeon?” 

“You’re not that,” said Polly, rousing. 
And her aunt, hugging her rapturously, 
said, “Polly, you’re a darling! ” 

So the phonograph was turned down 
from her lofty place as chaperon. But she 
found a compensation later on in being 
maid-of-honor to a beautiful October bride. 


A MOMENTARY MADNESS. 


The great hospital clock struck nine p. 
m. and the night nurses appeared promptly 
at the door of the superintendent’s office. 
She herself, tall, grave, thoughtful, sat pen 
in hand, waiting to take the names and 
assign the duties. “There are only four of 
you wanted in the Surgical Ward,” she 
said, “numbers 17 and 31 died to-day, and I 
want a special for number 6 Private Surgical. 
Miss Clemens, I had hoped to take you off 
duty to-night, for you have had too much 
extra work lately, but perhaps you will find 
this special case easier than the ward. ” The 
superintendent entered her name and Miss 
Clemens went up the slippery slated stairs 
with the ease born of long custom. She 
entered quietly the door of No. 6 Private 
Surgical, where the head nurse awaited her. 

“Miss Clemens,” said the latter, in a soft 
English voice, “You will have no trouble; 
the patient is doing well though she is a 
little nervous. Do not call the doctor un- 
( 120 ) 


A MOMENTARY MADNESS. 


121 


less her temperature rises high. You may 
give her a hypodermic if the pain in her 
knee should be severe.’’ 

Miss Clemens, when left alone with her 
patient, straightened with deft touch the 
vials upon the table, the only change she 
could make to improve the exquisite neat- 
ness of the room, then she pulled a chair 
under the gas-jet and took a book from the 
pocket of her blue gingham gown. She 
was a pleasant-looking creature, yet with a 
suggestion of uncurbed strength in the poise 
of her head. The long night held no terrors 
for her if enlivened by a book, but she had 
not read far when her ears caught a faint 
whisper from the patient; “Please turn 
down the light. I can not sleep.” Katharine 
Clemens had learned to obey promptly 
though her heart was not always as acquies- 
cent as her exterior. She hated inaction ; 
what she had come to the hospital for was 
work, hard work, and the silent waiting of 
the sick room gave her thoughts unwelcome 
freedom to run riot mid unpleasant memo- 
ries. These plastered walls and bare floors, 
the table with chart and vials, the pale old 
woman on the bed, how had they come to 


122 


A MOMENT AKY MADNESS. 


be her life? She remembered the swift, 
strange delight which burst upon her heart 
when she first met George Trench. Their 
sudden mutual affection left no time for 
prudent forebodings, and Katharine with 
characteristic impulsiveness had promised 
an early marriage. Trench wrote to his 
mother in Europe announcing his engage- 
ment, but to Katharine’s indignant surprise, 
an angry letter had come from Mrs. Trench 
refusing to hear of any marriage for her 
only son. 

‘^Wait until she knows you, dear,” Trench 
had urged. “She is alone, she has no one 
but me; do not be angry with her.” Yet 
Katharine, offended and imperious, regarded 
his filial affection as cowardice and broke 
their engagement. After this her luxurious 
home became unbearable to her, and restless, 
she longed for work. “Give me plenty of 
hard work,” she said, on entering the hos- 
pital. A desire for self-sacrifice is usually 
easily satisfied in this world and her superiors 
had done their best to gratify her wishes. 
“I like it too.” she thought, watching her 
quiet patient. No. 6 stirred slightly and 
moaned a little in her sleep. The faint 


A MOMENTARY MADNESS. 123 

light fell on her long, thin hand out-stretched 
upon the coverlet. A watch ticked from 
the bureau, and as Nurse Clemens turned to 
see the time she saw also a photograph 
pasted in the case opposite the dial. It was 
George’s face! Katharine, surprised and 
startled, turned and looked closely at her 
patient and then scanned the name on the 
chart. No. 6 Private Surgical, was Mrs. 
Ellen Trench. Katharine was almost ter- 
rified at the strange chance that had cast 
them together ; she studied the face on the 
pillow. It was sharpened by illness, but 
there were George’s dark deep-set eyes, the 
spirited, proud curve of nose and lips, the 
same contour of chin, yet it seemed to 
Katharine that this was a hard, cold face 
and she felt a rising anger against her. The 
clock struck the hour and the nurse forgot 
her personal feelings as she took pulse, res- 
piration and temperature and gave the 
medicine ordered ; then she sat down again 
to her rebellious broodings. The patient 
became restless and moved uneasily. Per- 
haps she felt a malign influence in the room, 
or perhaps it was because a storm was 
gatheriug outside. The northwest wind 


124 


A MOMENTARY MADNESS. 


whistled through the bare branches of the 
elm tree outside the window and Katharine 
saw the boughs loom skeleton-like against 
the glare of the electric lights. An ambulance 
rushed up with a “hurry-call” and there 
was a subdued bustle in the hall which 
shortly sank into silence. The sleet began 
to rattle against the heavy panes of glass 
and No. 6 raised her head, fixing her eyes 
on Katharine. 

“Oh, the pain!” she moaned weakly. 
“Who are you? why do you look at me like 
that?” 

^ ‘I am your nurse,” said Katharine, almost 
inaudibly. She felt that she hated the poor 
old woman in spite of her helplessness. 

“Where is George? Why does not George 
come? oh, the pain ! give me a hypodermic 1 ’ ’ 

With swift professional instinct Katharine 
took the syringe, and having filled it was on 
the point of baring her patient^s arm, when 
suddenly her angry dislike burst suddenly 
into that violent physical rage which knows 
no master. She felt the hot blood swelling 
and rushing in her chest and a blind desire 
to destroy something whirling through her 
brain. She drepped into a chair and gripped 


A MOMENTAEY MADNESS. 125 

the arms of it till her hands trembled with 
the tension. She did not know how long 
she sat there shuddering and watching the 
chiseled features distorted by pain. All at 
once her rage died out leaving her icy cold 
and calm enough to realize that she had 
failed in her duty. She gave the hypodermic 
and sank into a reverie of amazement and 
remorse. How could she forgive herself 
that although pledged to the relief of suffer- 
ing she had added a moment to the pain she 
might have relieved? She watched the 
white face on the pillow with unspeakable 
misery. Suppose the eyes should open and 
the lips ask “Why did you let me suffer so 
long?’’ could Katharine answer “Because 
your unreasonableness has spoiled my life.” 
She knew she had spoiled it herself by im- 
patient resentment. If she had waited to 
know Mrs. Trench before breaking her en- 
gagement, all might have come right, but 
now in her cruel anger she had done a wrong 
that raised a real barrier between herself and 
the man she loved. 

About midnight supper was brought to 
her but she could only take a little coffee. 
Later, the night watchman came stepping 


126 A MOMENTARY MADNESS. 

softly on the polished floor outside the door. 
‘‘A telegram, nurse, for No. 6,’’ he said in 
an undertone. Katharine read it quickly. 
•‘Have just heard of your accident. Will 
arrive to-morrow morning. 

George Trench.’^ 

Katharine trembled with apprehension; 
how could she meet him? suppose his mother 
complained and made a scandal, where 
would the faithless nurse go? Now her 
work seemed inexpressibly dear, the bare 
cleanness of the room suited the desolation 
of her heart. How could she return to fine 
clothes, bric-a-brac, society functions and 
amusements with the increasing remorse and 
hatred of herself consuming her? The 
patient slept profoundly, the hours dragged 
slowly, broken only by the wind or the faint 
far-echo of some belated revellers. Some- 
times a door creaked as the other night 
nurses slipped in and out on their rounds. 
About four o’clock No. 6 opened her eyes 
and looked imploringly at Miss Clemens but 
did not speak. 

“What is it? the pain again?” asked 
Kathaiine. There was no answer, only a 
steady, lonely look from the dark eyes and 


A MOMENTAEY MADNESS. ■ 127 

the nurse felt the pulse, finding it veiy low. 
She touched the electric bell at the head of 
the bed to summon the resident physician. 
The young doctor seemed puzzled at the 
change in the patient. 

“There must be some complication. She 
is very nervous but her fracture is knitting 
well and we have not suspected any heart 
trouble.’^ 

“She is conscious, I think,” said Katha- 
rine, “but does not speak. Your son is 
coming in the morning,” she added, leaning 
over the bed. “A telegram came from him 
while you were asleep,” A shivering passed 
over the sick woman’s form as if she wished 
to weep, but no tears rose to her eyes nor 
did she speak. Miss Clemens stopped to 
arrange the bed cove lings and Mrs. Trench 
grasped her hand, holding it tightly as if 
for protection, and looking at her with a 
lonely, frightened gaze like a hurt animal. 
There was no hint of uuforgivingness or 
even knowledge of any wrong in her expres- 
sion, and Katherine felt more reproached 
by its appeal than she could have been by 
an accusation. The head nurse and the 
resident consulted in a corner of the room in 


128 A MOMENTARY MADNESS. 

low tones. ‘‘I will stay,’’ said the former. 
“The patient has evidently taken a fancy 
to Miss Clemens and it is a pity to disturb 
her. ’ ’ So Katharine sat by the dying woman 
who no longer followed her with her eyes 
but still held her hand tightly clasped. The 
other arm pulled convulsively with strong 
movements at the bedclothes. A tray with 
the nurse’s breakfast was brought in at 
seven o’clock and for obedience’s sake 
Katharine took a littlo although it choked 
her. She watched the clear, rich olive pale 
on the face beside her, and the grey creep 
slowly from mouth and chin over the other 
features, then the grasps grew fainter and 
the hand that held Katharine’s colder till 
at last the head-nurse unclasped it, saying, 
“Now go, my dear, you are quite exhausted. 
You have been more than a nurse, you have 
been like a daughter.” 

Katharine did not move but was still sit- 
ting looking at her with wan, pale eyes when 
the door opened suddenly. A man entered 
swiftly, turning toward the bed with a low 
cry “Is she gone? Oh, Katharine! is it you? 
You have taken care of my mother; how 
good of you!” Katherine trembled and 


A MOMENTARY MADNESS. 129 

covered her face with her hands as he went 
on in a voice, gentle with grief and grati- 
tude: ‘‘It is right to find you here in the 
daughter’s place. Do you know why I was 
not here? Before this unlucky accident I 
had spoken to her again and gained her con- 
sent to our marriage. Then I went to find 
you, Katharine, so I was not with her.” 

Katharine looked at him sadly without 
replying, and left the room, forgetting 
everything for a time in a heavy sleep of 
exhaustion. When she awoke the new 
problem in her life confronted her. She 
had never known before that she was liable 
to the blind physical anger that may make 
criminals of unwilling men. It seemed to 
her honest soul that there was a perpetual 
bar between herself and happiness because 
in her first passion she had been unkind to 
the mother of the man who loved her. 

“I know,” she said to herself, “that in 
these days it is considered morbid to deny 
one’s own will anything, but I can not mar- 
ry Greorge without telling him, and even if 
he should forgive me, I can not forget it.” 

After the funeral when the first soft green 
appeared faintly on the trees around the 
9 


130 A MOMENTAEY MADNESS. 

hospital and the first sweet airs of spring 
blew a chastened hope on Trench’s heart, 
he returned to seek Katharine. The super- 
intendent usually felt very little interest in 
people who were neither patients, nurses or 
doctors, yet she watched the dark sad face 
with kindly curiosity as Trench paced rest- 
lessly up and down the bare reception-room. 
He scanned rapidly each white- capped, 
blue-gowned figure that flitted noiselessly 
past the door, and stepped forward eagerly 
when one of them entered, an exquisite 
humility drooping her proudly-poised head, 
a soft sorrow in her eyes. He took her 
hands despite her deprecation and listened 
with gentle attention to her story. 

^‘Tell me dear, do two wrongs make a 
right, and must you make me unhappy for 
a lifetime because your conscience accuses 
you of having done wrong for a few mo- 
ments ? I think you exaggerate and even if 
you do not, it is a good thing for you to 
know your limitations. I like you better, 
Katharine,” he added, smiling tenderly at 
her, “with that stiff neck bent a little.” 
“I am not convinced, but if you will not be 
Sony, George,” — she broke off and told 


A MOMENTARY MADNESS. 


131 


the rest of her sentence by a glance of sweet, 
repentant eyes. So, leaving behind her a 
morbid dream of perpetual expiation, Kath- 
arine accepted the promise of earthly hap- 
piness to ‘^travel on life’s common way” iu 
self-knowledge and humility. 



A CRIMINAL TYPE. 


An American girl is not likely to be uni- 
versally acknowledged as a “beauty,’’ unless 
she marries a foreign title, or obtains some 
unpleasant notoriety in the newspapers. 
Perhaps it is because so many of our girls 
are happy, healthy, refined and well-featured 
that one rarely hears anyone of them called 
beautiful, whereas in Europe if a woman is 
pretty at all she is usually called a beauty. 
But Marion Whilldin was an exception to 
this rule, for she was admitted to be the 
reigning beauty of the Country Club in her 
native town, and the indifferent shrug of 
the shoulders which often followed her ap- 
pearance at its various functions indicated 
unpopularity, not want of admiration. The 
unpopularity was easily explained ; for Miss 
Whilldin was a creature of fads, and had 
the strange taste always to select some fad 
for her own which was quite out of fashion, 
and to defy those of others, with a fatal 
want of tact. When the Audubon Society 
( 132 ) 


A CEIMINAL TYPE. 


133 


had won general adherence among the 
young people Miss Whilldin appeared sur- 
mounted with a waving forest of aigrettes, 
and she quoted wise sayings as to the rights 
of man over the brute creation. When all 
the world thrilled with news of some con- 
temporaneous blood-shedding she retired 
into the middle ages, or studied minutely 
some forgotten detail of the Civil War. 
Therefore, no one was surprised to find [her 
on the eventful afternoon of the great match 
of the season, perfectly indifferent to the 
general excitement and altogether absorbed 
in the study of ethnology which she had 
recently taken up at the University. 

The match was played between a famous 
New York player and the local champion, 
Tom Hart, who was one of Miss Whilldin’s 
few admirers. Flushed with exercise and 
victory he came to where she sat, and as she 
watched him running over the close green 
turf, swinging his arms, his handsome head 
held high, like a fine young horse ready for 
a gallop, Marion said to herself, ‘‘How 
handsome he is, and how fond of me! I 
might, perhaps I do, love him.’^ Then she 
shot swift, critical glances at his bright face. 


134 


A CKIMINAL TYPE. 


while she congratulated him on winning 
the match, putting the results of her criti- 
cisms into phrases from her recent studies. 
“Long arms’’ she thought, “that is a rever- 
sion to a primitive type, and suggests mon- 
keys. Head, brachycephalic ; that would 
be good only that Tom’s is too wide, and 
his ears certainly stand put, like those of a 
criminal type! I can’t marry a man of a 
criminal type. Professor Robbins says 
scientific indications must be carefully con- 
sidered, and that if people vill only disre- 
gard instinctive first attractions, and decide 
their marriages scientifically the whole type 
of the human race will gradually improve.” 
So, under the influence of the theories of 
her professor she froze the rising tenderness 
in her heart, and treated poor Tom more 
and more coldly, though he made the usual 
mistake of an ardent young lover, and tried 
to melt his coldness by her own fire, in- 
stead of tactfully neglecting her a little, 
which usually brings a refractory maiden to 
terms. There was always a charmed circle 
of solitude around them, for Tom had no 
rivals with the eccentric Miss Whilldin, and 
so there was no interruption to his urgent, 


A CKIMINAL TYPE. 


135 


though ill-timed wooing, to which she only 
replied, ‘‘I like you, Tom, but I cannot 
marry you.’’ It was not possible even for 
an ethnologist to fashion cold scientific 
reasons in reply to the pain in his fine dark 
eyes. Marion felt out of tune, and remorse- 
ful, and so left the club house very early, 
before the long summer afternoon had 
turned to dusk, and before the golden light 
had paled on the shining sweeps of meadow 
that lay between the Country Club and the 
town. 

The trolley-line left the pleasant countiy 
and ran through an ugly httle mill- village 
which formed part of the suburbs. Presently 
a man got into the car, holding a little boy 
by the hand. He took the seat in front of 
Miss Whilldin, and her attention was im- 
mediately attracted by the repulsive ugli- 
ness of his appearance. He was extremely 
dirty and sullen. His hair was coarse, 
black and bristling, his skin swarthy, and 
yet there was something in the shape of his 
head that reminded Marion of someone she 
knew. 

‘‘Who can it be?” she asked herself. 
“The fellow is horrible, and yet he certainly 


136 


A CRIMINAL TYPE. 


looks like someone. It cannot be, yes, it 
is really Tom ! in spite of his being so hand- 
some! I thought his was a bad type, a 
really criminal type.’^ 

Then she looked at the child, who was a 
little fellow of about seven years, and a 
replica of the man. Both faces were with- 
out a single attractive line, expressing only 
dirt, degradation and despair. Marion felt 
disagreeably fascinated by these two creat- 
ures, and temporarily distracted from the 
annoyance which Tom Hart’s ill-timed pro- 
posal, and her dep rival of his pleasant com- 
panionship had caused her. 

“I can see in these two what the com- 
plete development of the type may pro- 
duce,” she mused. ‘‘What a mercy if I 
have been prevented from attaching myself 
for life to one who in the future may 
develope into a criminal! ” 

Her glance fell on a paper which the man 
had pulled from his pocket and which he 
was trying to read. Her quick eye took in 
the heading, “Board of Charities and Cor- 
rection.’^ “He is no doubt a discharged 
convict, his hair shows it. He is probably 
going to leave that poor child in the Alms- 


A CRIMINAL TYPE. 


137 


house, so that he may be free to pursue an 
evil life without being hampered. How sad 
it is, and what a bad face! without any 
redeeming line!” Thus she thought, with 
more probability than charity. 

At the entrance to the almshouse the 
man signalled the conductor to stop the 
car, then he stepped to the ground, and as 
the little boy prepared to climb down after 
him, he held out his arms, while an in- 
describable look of passionate tenderness 
illumined his face. He did not permit the 
boy to step down, but held out his arms 
and gathered him close to his heart, un- 
mindful of any watchers, and kissed the 
child with a clinging tenderness that sent a 
thrill of sympathetic emotion through Miss 
Whilldin’s heart. 

‘‘That was love,” she thought, “a won- 
derful love ! Who could fancy such a man 
could love like that. And surely there must 
be tremendous good in one who can, even 
if he does belong to a criminal type,” with 
a sudden weakening in her faith in scientific 
theories. 

During the days that followed Marion 
could not drive from her mind the memory 


1S8 


A CEIMINAL TYPE. 


of the man of ‘‘Criminal type” and the 
great love for his child that had trans- 
figured. Slowly the memory of him trans- 
formed itself into a memory of Tom Hart, 
and she found herself more and more bored 
with ethnological disquisitions and scientific 
notions. A great loneliness took hold of 
her and life seemed to stretch dully away 
toward a limitless horizon. One day as she 
was going home after her lesson at the 
University, utterly disgusted with the un- 
stable theories which are set up like tenpins 
by one scientist, only to be knocked down 
by the next, she met Tom Hart, at her own 
gate. He bowed stiffly, and was going on, 
when she said, blushing a little, “Won’t 
you come in to see me?” 

The warm blood rushed to his face and a 
glad wonder filled his eyes, as he said, “Are 
you sure you want me?” 

“Quite sure,” she answered, and then, 
seeing by his face the same sort of look that 
had so moved her sympathy in the poor 
man, she added, “Tom, may I take back 
what I said?” 

“But why have you changed your mind,” 
he asked, some hours later, after the first 
usual ceremonies were over. 


A CEIMINAL TYPE. 


139 


had an object lesson in Ethnology, 
she replied, ‘‘and decided that I admired a 
criminal type.’’ 


OUR LADY’S ROSES. 


The Western sunshine always found its 
way into St. Michael’s. Just opposite the 
window, near the Blessed Virgin’s altar, the 
ground sloped sharply toward the west, and 
beyond that there was only a stretch of 
open lawns and noble gardens, so no dull 
brick walls cut off the last rays of light, 
which streamed through the colored glass 
and tinged the marble whiteness of the 
statue of the Sacred Heart into rosy loveli- 
ness. 

In the day time the chureh, though very 
beautiful in the exquisite taste of its brown 
and tan frescoing, was a little cold in tone. 
Whether it was some lingering, hereditary 
hatred for “England’s cruel red,” I know 
not; but the good priest who had built the 
church would not tolerate one scrap of the 
martyr’s color in decoration or furnishing, 
and it was only when the djung sun made 
protest that the church took on its share of 
the hue which Eubens held necessary to a 
perfect picture. 


( 140 ) 


OUR lady’s roses. 


141 


Miss Warrington loved best of all hours 
the late, warm twilight of Saturday in her 
dear St. Michael’s. Shadows and sunlight 
mingled then in beauty unrivalled by Rem- 
brandt and his masters. Sweetest of all 
music seemed to her the peculiar hushed 
stillness which seemed but the more sacredly 
silent for the occasional faint tinkling of a 
rosary, or the dull sound of a carefully 
closed confessional door, as a penitent crept 
in or out of the dark shelter for sin-weary 
souls. No other silence ever seemed to 
Frances Warrington so throbbing with 
suppressed meaning as that which brooded 
over the church at this hour. One almost 
expected to hear the soft wings of the 
Heavenly Dove brushing the air, and after 
Frances had finished all her prayers she 
always sat a little longer, neither praying 
nor meditating. There was in her own soul 
the very perfection of peace, a peace so per- 
fect as to be almost unconscious, and of 
this she thought little; but she sat tran- 
quilly enjoying the consciousness that dur- 
ing those moments sin-stained, heart-sick 
souls were being restored to whiteness and 
grace. 


142 


OUR lady’s roses. 


Sometimes as she sat there her eyes 
would note some slight imperfection in the 
altar which she had arranged during the 
forenoon — an altar-cloth pulled awry or a 
candle jarred from the perpendicular by 
some movement of priest or sexton. Sev- 
eral times she noticed, as she went into the 
sanctuary to rearrange the decorations, a 
face following her with a wistfulness of ex- 
pression which she interpreted by some 
sympathetic memory of a time when she 
herself had thought with almost breathless 
envy of those who were permitted to attend 
to the altar. 

‘‘I wish I knew that girl,” she thought, 
“I am sure she wants to help me about the 
altar.” 

For several Saturdays she saw that this 
girl, who was a stranger in the parish, 
always had with her a large bunch of 
beautiful La France roses, and the follow- 
ing Sunday the roses always blushed in 
pink perfection on Our Lady’s altar. Fran- 
ces supposed that the sexton put them 
there, and one day she asked her if she 
knew who the young lady was who always 
brought the roses for the altar. One Satur- 


OUR LADY^S ROSES. 


143 


day evening Miss Warrington was sitting in 
the church after confession when the girl 
rose and came timidly towards her, holding 
out the roses and whispering, ‘‘Will you 
put these on the Blessed Virgin’s altar. The 
sexton is not in the sacristy.” 

“Would you like to put them there your- 
self?” asked Frances, with quick kindness, 
and the girl’s face lit up with eager delight, 
as she answered, softly, “Will you let me! 
What shall I do?” 

Frances led the way to the sacristy and 
pointed out the little closet where the vases 
were kept and the hydrant where they 
might be filled ; then she said, “I know it 
will be a pleasure for you to arrange the 
lovely flowers you bring, and any time 
when you do not find me or the sexton you 
may place them yourself on Our Lady’s 
altar.” 

“How kind you are! ” breathed the girl, 
her eager blue eyes, in which shone the in- 
tense frank clearness of a child’s, lighting 
with pleasure. In a few moments she had 
finished her task and followed Miss War- 
rington into the darkening street. 

“May I come home with you, for a few 


144 


OUR lady’s roses. 


minutes,” she asked, timidly. “I have 
wanted to know you for a long time. My 
name is Phillips, and all my peple are Prot- 
estants. I do not know a single Catholic 
in this town.” 

This admission was sufficient to awaken 
Miss Warrington’s immediate sympathy 
and concern; for she knew too well the 
weakness of human nature, and the need of 
the soul for help, not to appreciate the fact 
that in the isolation thus confessed lay a 
possible danger of loss of faith. 

‘‘You ought to know Catholics ; it is good 
for you in every way to have friends among 
them,” she said, earnestly. 

“I have not seen anyone in this church 
to whom I felt at all attracted, till I saw 
you,” said Miss Philhps, with a childish 
impulsiveness which seemed to guarantee 
her sincerity, and which persuaded Frances 
Warrington to overlook the apparent pride 
of the admission. Miss Phillips went on 
saying, “I became a Catholic while I was 
away from home, and I did not want to be 
one. I was convinced in my intellect that 
it was the true Church, and the priest who 
instructed me thought that I should grow 


OUH lady’b roses. 


145 


to love it when I was actually inside it ; but 
in many ways I still hate to be a Catholic. 
My friends told me that I should never 
have any friends again — that there were 
no nice Catholics. You see they never come 
in contact with real Catholics. At home 
they only meet Episcopalians or Presbyteri- 
ans, and do not know the other soils of 
Protestants nor Catholics at all. When we 
go away in the summer it is to a place 
where Mass is never said, and such Catho- 
lics as go there are so lukewarm that they 
seem like pagans ; so that my people think 
Catholics of their own class do not believe 
in their religion at all.’’ 

“How did you happen to find out the 
truth yourself?” asked Frances, as they 
walked on together. 

It was a story full of what one calls 
“accidents” which Miss Phillips told her 
new acquaintance. She had been visiting 
a friend who had temporarily lost the use of 
her eyesight while she was studying the 
doctrines of the Catholic faith. Miss Phil- 
lips, with warm-hearted pity, had offered to 
read aloud the books in which her afflicted 
friend was absorbingly interested, but from 
10 


146 


OUE LADY^S EOSES. 


which Miss Phillips’ own sturdy Protestant 
soul turned in repugnance. Whether or not 
the charity of the sacrifice won for her the 
grace of conversion none can say ; but long 
before the first seeker had been convinced, 
the frank, clear mind of Nelly Phillips had 
accepted the whole dogmatic scheme of the 
church without reserve. Unfortunately, 
her thorough understanding of doctrine and 
the vivid enthusiasm of her manner of talk- 
ing concerning some aspects of the Church’s 
ritual, had misled the good priest whom she 
consulted. He thought her more fervent 
than she really was, and hurried on her 
reception into the Church, fearing lest she 
should be called away before she had re- 
ceived the graces of the Sacraments. If he 
was in error he was easily excusable; for 
Nelly at that time was so contradictory a 
character that no one, not even herself, 
could lay claim to understanding her. 

“I fainted in the baptistiy,” said Nelly, 
‘‘as soon as I was baptized. I was ex- 
hausted by sheer anger that I should have 
to be one of the despised band of Catholics. 
Then Fr. Mayhew hastened my first Com- 
munion lest I should turn back altogether, 


OUE lady’s eoses. 


147 


and there was nothing but dissatisfaction 
through it all. Sometimes it seems to me 
that I am not a Catholic at all.” She said 
this in trembling tones and her blue eyes 
seemed about to pour out a torrent of tears. 

The two girls had reached the gate of 
Miss Warrington’s home by this time, and 
no sooner had they entered the pleasant 
drawing-room than Nelly’s quick eye noted 
in a glance a score of evidences of refine- 
ment and culture equal or superior to any 
in her own home. The pictures on the 
walls were of the light character suitable for 
such a room; for the Warrington’s knew 
enough to banish heavy old family portraits 
to the library. There were pretty signed 
etchings and delicate water colors; there 
were books of poetry or essays at hand; so 
that no one might have a dull moment if 
compelled to wait for the hostess, on a day 
when she was not formally “at home.” A 
dainty tea table with shining Samovar, ex- 
quisite china and gleaming silver spoke of 
simple hospitality, and Miss Warrington 
touched the bell to summon the neat, white- 
capped maid to fill the Samovar. In a few 
moments, over the steaming tea-cups Nelly 
renewed her story-telling. 


148 


OUR lady's roses. 


She was a most attractive girl, though 
not actually a pretty one. Frances thought 
she had never seen a woman more un- 
touched by years and sorrow, for her man- 
ner was as gay and buoyant as that of a 
girl in her teens, though she was, as she 
frankly said, “Nearly out of my twenties." 

There was something pathetic in the reck- 
lessness with which she gave her confidence 
to a stranger ; and it might have made Miss 
Warrington feel prejudiced against her if 
she had not been so sorry for her, and if 
she had not also known that there was a 
mysterious effect in her own personality 
which made it easy for others to confide in 
her. “I remember," she once said, laugh- 
ing, “having the whole love-story of a 
shop-girl told to me while I had my shoes 
fitted." It was not that she was neces- 
sarily more sympathetic than others; but 
that in addition to the sympathy which is 
natural to women she had an imaginative 
mind, and interest in the study of char- 
acter- which made her listen with intense 
attention to other’s stories. 

Every sentence that Nelly uttered showed 
how thoroughly she was in need of help. 


OUE lady’s koses. 


149 


111 the great doctrines she was well grounded, 
and very few “old Catholics” could have 
told the half she knew of authorities, or 
Councils, of the Fathers, or Papal Bulls. 
There were many things which were quite 
beyond the ordinary Catholic that to Nelly 
were matters of course. It was almost 
amusing to note the contradictions in her 
spiritual regime. She made an hour’s 
meditation every morning after the manner 
of Saint Teresa, “Because I like to, and I 
like Saint Teresa,” she explained, gayly; 
yet she did not say any morning prayers. 
She went to Communion every week, cling- 
ing with desperate devotion to belief in the 
Blessed Sacrament ; though eveiy time she 
left the church, she said to herself, “I wish 
that I did not have to hear Mass. I do not 
like to be a Catholic.” She did not wear 
scapulars, and worse still, had never been 
confirmed, though she had been five years 
in the Church. Frances Warrington was 
divided between amazement at Nelly’s in- 
consistencies and at the fact that she had 
preserved her faith at all. 

“I want you to take me in tow,” said 
Miss Phillips, impulsively, “I will do any- 


150 


OUR LADY^S ROSES. 


tiling you say; take me anywhere and make 
me know the people I ought to know.’’ 

There was another side to the matter 
which Nelly had been too amiable to dis- 
close; though Frances learned it soon from 
many others who observed her acquain- 
tance with Miss Phillips. The family had 
recently returned to the city after a res- 
idence of some years at a country home. 
The mother had married for a second time 
a man who was very bigoted, and not only 
in religious matters, but in worldly ones as 
well, was Nelly made to feel an alien. She 
had willingly left home to earn her own 
living, but the constant invalidism of her 
mother made it essential for Nelly to come 
back, to look after the unruly little half- 
brothers and sisters who were taught by 
their parents to despise her religion and to 
distrust her personal character. She was 
devotedly fond of children, and impetuous 
though she was, her gentleness never failed 
with little ones ; but no sooner did one of 
them throw himself into her arms seeking 
the ready sympathy that waited him, than 
the cold voice of his father warned, “Be 
careful what you tell sister; she will repeat 
it all to some old priest.” 


OUR UADY^S ROSES. 


151 ' 


No one who did not know Frances War- 
rington, and her tact and insight into other’s 
hearts, would have fancied that one who 
had not been specially trained to diplomacy 
could have “managed” another so well as 
she did Nelly Phillips. There was no sug- 
gestion of the wily “clever woman” about 
Frances. Her black hair was parted 
smoothly in the simplest manner above an 
open brow. Her black eyes — soft, melan- 
choly eyes — were as limpid as Nelly’s own. 
Her wisdom was as truly dove-like in its 
outward showing as was her harmlessness, 
probably because it was the fruit of grace. 
She left the reconstructing of her friend’s 
spiritual edifice to others ; but in order to 
bring Nelly under the right influences it 
was necessary to show as much cleverness 
as for a cowboy to corral a mustang. If she 
had taken Nelly at her word, “take me in 
tow, make me know the people I ought to 
know” no good would have been done. But 
by delicate bits of finesse she managed each 
time they went out together to draw her 
friend to one spot or another where they 
might meet pleasant Catholics, or to a ser- 
mon at the Children of Mary, or to call 


152 


OUR lady’s roses. 


upon some nun. What Miss Warrington 
most desired was to place Nelly in the hands 
of a regular director, and she had told the 
whole situation to her own confessor at the 
Jesuit Church; but Nelly was capricious 
and wary if she suspected that anything 
was being planned for her spiritual welfare. 
Some weeks had gone by without Frances’ 
being able to entice Nelly to see Father 
Hamel, when the thought struck her to 
take her perplexing charge to a matinee at 
a theatre near to St. Francis Borgia’s. 
After the play Miss Warrington said, 
“ Would you mind stopping a moment with 
me at the church? I wanted to tell my 
confessor something about a poor family 
who need attention.” 

Frances had rightly guessed that Nelly’s 
first glance at Fr. Hamel would prove the 
open sesame to her stubborn heart, and all 
the time while he listened to Frances’ story 
they were both conscious that a keen pair 
of bright blue eyes were noticing wistfully 
each look or word that spoke of a pleasant 
friendliness between them. In spite of 
Nelly’s reckless frankness on first acquain- 
tance she had a disappointing fashion of 


OUE lady’s roses. 


153 


drawing back into her shell, and there were 
many things concerning her which were a 
perfect mystery to her older friend. But 
even these were not concealed from Fr. 
Hamel, who had not only a marvellous per- 
sonal magnetism but also the overwhelming 
kindness which made it easy for him to 
become absorbed in the needs of others. 
With his own tact, and the additional 
knowledge which Miss Warrington gave 
him of Nelly’s worldly circumstances, it was 
not long before he had, to use Nelly’s own 
expression, ‘‘made her all over,” and she 
added, “I realize that I have been between 
the upper and the nether millstone all the 
time ; for what he did not find out himself 
you put him up to,” with a laugh that took 
all possible sting from the words. 

There were other ways in which Frances 
herself was a help. Nelly had said of her 
own people, “More than half of their objec- 
tions to my religion are social and worldly 
ones. They really do not dream that many 
Catholics are quite as good or better than 
they are themselves.” 

And thus the first effect of her new friend- 
ship was a great softening of their foolish 


154 


OUB lady’s BOSES. 


pride ; for not lon^ after the intimacy had 
begun between the two girls they passed 
Nelly’s stepfather in the street, and he 
asked afterwards, “Who was that fine- 
looking girl with you to-day I” 

“Miss Warrington,” with pardonable 
pride, said Nelly, for though she did not 
dare to ask a Catholic to visit her, she 
nevertheless knew well that her step-father 
would highly value Miss Warrington’s 
social position. 

“What Warringtons? Not old Matthew 
Warrington’s daughter? Where did you 
pick her up?” 

“I met her at church, and we have been 
friends for some time,” answered Nelly, 
with great inward amusement. 

“Not at a Cathohc Church? The War- 
ringtons are Quakers I am sure,” said he, 
incredulously. 

“The family used to be, but Mrs. War- 
rington is an Irish Catholic, and he has 
been a Catholic himself, now, for many 
years.” 

Nelly afterward told Frances, “My friends 
may be bigoted, but they can swallow Cath- 
ohcity when presented by Colonial Dames 
in tailor-made gowns.” 


OUE lady’s eoses. 


155 


“The apostleship of good clothes, I sup- 
pose,” laughed Miss Warrington, “Was 
that what St. Francis de Sales meant when 
he advised his penitents to dress as well as 
they could afford?” 

In spite of their bigoted pride the Phil- 
lips were by no means of the best class of 
Protestants. They were not specially well- 
read, and had not the broad outlook on the 
world of literature and history in general, 
that must involve at least some knowledge 
of Catholic achievements. When they 
thrust the old outworn gibes at Nelly, in- 
stead of laughing them off with pleasant 
scorn, which would have shown the strength 
of her position, she annoyed them by seri- 
ous argument of which they were able to 
see the force, and therefore they felt angry 
at her superior cleverness. When Nelly 
came triumphantly to tell Frances of her 
victories, she was asked, “Did you make 
them acknowledge they were wrong?” 

“Oh, no, they will never do that! ” 

“You know,” continued Frances, “that 
man as well as woman ‘convinced against his 
will, is of the same opinion still.’ You 
make a great mistake in arguing with those 


156 


OUR lady’s roses. 


who do not wish to be convinced. It only 
makes them dislike you more.” 

“You are not a convert,” rejoined Nelly. 
“You do not know how I am placed.” 

“My father is, and we have had to get on 
pleasantly all these years with his relatives. 
I think it is only to be done in one way. 
Let doctrines entirely alone, until your 
friends seek explanation of themselves. But 
let the life of a Catholic speak for itself, and 
always be simple and frank about all kinds 
of Catholic devotions ; for my experience is 
that those are the things Protestants most 
misunderstand.” 

“Yes, it is those things they are always 
slurring at,” admitted Nelly. “I have to 
sneak out of the house every time I go to 
confession, which they think some mysteri- 
ous horrible performance like a Rosicrucian 
rite, I suppose.” 

“Then,” urged Frances, “the sneaking 
out of the house is the very thing you ought 
not to do. Of course you cannot tell them 
what is actually said in confession, but you 
can certainly watch for some opportunity 
to make them understand. Do not let them 
think you are ashamed of it.” 


OUE lady’s eoses. 


157 


‘‘I certainly am not ashamed; but it 
seems difficult to explain the very sacred 
things,” said Nelly. 

“I do not say that you must tell them 
your own feelings; but only give the simple 
fact of what the devotions are. The sweet 
devotions of the Church, in many cases, 
speak for themselves, without argument. 
Of course most Protestants get their ideas 
of our religion from the very ignorant. I 
remember a woman who came to me in 
great excitement from timidity, and with 
a hundred apologies, if she should prove in- 
discreet, asked me if she dared to inquire 
something concerning my religion. I told 
her I would be delighted to tell her any- 
thing. She continued assuring me that she 
did not want to offend me, till I grew quite 
worked up, and expected some terribly 
scandalous disclosure. When she finally 
asked the dreaded question, it was nothing 
worse than “Can you tell me what is a 
sodality?” 

Nelly laughed, and said, “I believe you 
are right,” and since she had said thus 
much there was no longer any doubt that 
an intelligent trial of the new ideas would 
be made. 


158 


OUE lady’s roses. 


There is too much mystery in the develop- 
ment of the soul for any outsider to for- 
mulate fixed rules concerning it, or to guar- 
antee explanations, but after several years, 
when I met these two girls again, I never 
had any doubt that the change in Miss 
Phillips’ circumstances and character dated 
from the friendship with Frances Warring- 
ton. Her brightness was not gone, nor the 
buoyant spirit, but they never caused a flash 
of temper nor a rapier-like thrust of the 
clever tongue. There was a gentle placidity 
about her as far removed from stolidity, as 
was her regular observance of the customs 
of the Church from her former extravagant 
irresponsibility. Perhaps the greatest 
change was shown in a remark she once 
made after hearing the praises of another 
convert sounded, “It seems to me that 
every one is a better Catholic than I,” 
which remark showed plainly that she had 
grown in the foundation grace of humility, 
and that the days had long passed when she 
shuddered to think she belonged to a 
despised class. Frances had her own ex- 
planation of the change in Nelly, who had 
once said that among all the shortcomings 


OUR lady’s roses. 


159 


of the time when first they met, one of the 
most unfortunate was that she had no devo- 
tion to the Blessed Virgin. 

‘‘Yet, you always brought your roses to 
her altar.’’ 

“Still, I did not want to do so. I did it 
because I did not want to.” 

So Frances, who is a true child of Mary, 
believes that our Sweet Mother rewarded 
these half' blind acts of homage, and says to 
herself when Nelly’s own loveliness shines 
more radiantly than usual, “That is the 
fruit of Our Lady’s roses.” 


A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. 


Nan ran quickly out of the front gate, so 
quickly that she stumbled against a big 
stone and fell, scattering all her school- 
books on the ground. There were no 
school-bags or “grips’’ for little school- 
girls in those days. Then she picked them 
up and tucked them under her plump arm, 
grasping her luncheon basket tightly. She 
ran across the road to pick a bunch of 
“nigger-heads,” as the people in that west- 
ern village called the pretty bright ox-eyed 
daisies. When she passed the corner of 
each fence dividing one little place from 
another, she took a daisy from her bunch 
and put it into the corner of the fence. Nan 
always did that when she had to go to 
school alone and coming home she gathered 
lip all the daisies; if she found them all she 
considered it a very propitious day. This 
was a very lonely road. There were only 
houses on one side of it and on the other 
stretched the wide prairie, flat and bare for 
(ICO) 


A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. 


161 


miles except for wliat Nan called ‘‘scrubbing- 
brushes.” By this she meant the under- 
brush of scrub-oaks ; the names were con- 
fused in her mind. She ran on, intent on 
her trail of daisies until she turned into the 
street where the village really began. Elm 
Street, where Nan lived, (the people called 
it Ellum, ) — was not more than a country 
road, but Lincoln Street was paved and 
Nan amused herself by stepping over all the 
-cracks. She pretended that she would be 
poisoned if she walked on the cracks. That 
amused her till she came to the shops which 
were built around a square ; in the center 
was a fountain where the farmers watered 
their horses and where they tied them. In 
the square she met Molly Grreenleaf. Molly 
was a very pretty little girl with short, 
curly light hair and blue eyes. She loved 
Nan dearly and they sat together in school. 

“D’y’ know your Arithmetic, Nan?” 
asked Molly. 

“I don’t know; guess so,” said Nan. 

“ ’T’s awful hard. Want an apple. 
Nan?” 

“Thank you, Molly here’s a cookie.” 

They clutched their books tightly in order 
11 


162 


A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. 


to leave one arm free to put around each 
other’s waists. As they entered the school- 
yard a larger girl looked enviously at Molly. 
Matty Woods liked Nan who was every 
one’s favorite and the queen of the play- 
ground. 

^‘Come here, Nan,” she urged, as Nan 
shoved her books into her desk. 

“What you want, Mattie I” 

“Won’t you sit with me, Nani” 

“I promised to sit with Molly.” 

“I’ll give you some chocolates.” 

Nan’s eyes gave a flickering glance of ir- 
resolution. Chocolates were an aristocratic 
rarity to the children of Southwest Missouri 
and only one shop sold them. Matty Woods 
was almost the only child in the school who 
ever had them, and she usually ate hers 
alone without sharing them. Nan felt the 
flutter which an invitation to a meal of 
nightingale’s tongues might have caused in 
the humble breast of a plebeian of ancient 
Eome. Nan Spencer was better born and 
bred than Matty, but her sensible mother 
thought a penny stick of candy or a lump 
of jujube paste quite enough of sweeties for 
a little girl ten years old. But Nan, with 


A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. 


163 


the short-sightedness of childhood, took 
other children at a money valuation and 
regarded Matty Wood as her superior 
because she had more to spend on goodies. 

Miss Glreen called the school to order and 
Nan, as usual, took her place at the head of 
her class. This arrangement held through 
all the lessons till it came to Mental Arith- 
metic, then Nan had to go foot herself, for 
her clever little brain refused to work with 
figures unless assisted by a pencil and slate. 
Her downfall in the ranks brought her next 
to Matty Woods and the latter slipped a 
soft chocolate cream that could be eaten 
without a craunching noise, into the little 
hands folded behind Naids back. She 
waited till the mysterious inquiry ‘‘Thirty- 
five is seven-eights of what number?” had 
passed her and Miss Glreen’s eyes were 
turned toward the head of the class, then 
Nan stealthily popped the chocolate into 
her red little mouth. It was not a soft, rich 
brown chocolate, but the regular country 
store variety, shaped like a sugar loaf and 
very black and shiny. Still it tasted delici- 
ous to Nan and when Matty whispered, 
“I’ll give you a whole box full if you’ll sit 


164 


A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. 


with me,” Nan felt a little demon of glut- 
tony contending fiercely with love and 
loyalty to Molly in her heart. 

At intermission she said, ‘‘Molly, let’s 
walk around the square,” Molly was always 
very neat and wore pretty blue and pink 
frocks when the other children had brown 
and pui-ple ones. Nan hked pretty things 
and she felt proud of Molly as they passed 
the other children and heard one of them 
say, “Molly, that hat of yours with the 
pink roses on it is the prettiest one in 
school.” Matty Woods, for all her spend- 
ing-money, was slovenly. She was fat and 
had a pasty complexion like one who ate 
too much rich food, and her hat was a plain 
brown straw one with a blue ribbon around 
it “like the children at the poor house,” 
thought Nan. She tossed her head with the 
loftiness of one who scorns a bribe and 
ostentatiously put her arm around Molly 
and went down to the square. They stopped 
at a candy shop and went in. 

“Gimme a penny’s worth of chocolates,” 
said Nan, with dignity. 

“There ain’t no sech a thing as a penny’s 
worth,” said the shop-keeper. “Them 


A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. 


165 


chocolates is all made in Saint Louis and 
theyh-e eighty cents a pound. There ain’t 
eighty in a pound and I can’t split ’em,” 
he said, derisively. 

Nan blushed. “I’ll take a stick of winter- 
green.” 

The store-keeper called after her, “Wait, 
sissy, till the railroad’s built. You can’t 
get high-toned candy cheap when it comes 
all the way in a wagon.” 

“This candy’s good,” said Molly, sweetly, 
nibbling at her half. Nan made no reply, 
but munched gloomily, and in her ears 
chanted the voice of the tempter, “A whole 
box of chocolates.” 

“Molly,” she said, hesitating, “which 
would you rather have, half a box of choc- 
olates or sit with me!” 

“Why, Nan,” said Molly with a reproach- 
ful glance, “you know I love you better 
than all the candy in the world. I wish 
you were my sister. Nan. I wish you were 
one of the little girls at the poor house, 
then I’d ask my father to let you be my 
sister. When we grow up, let’s be two old 
maids and teach school like Miss May and 
Miss Green.” Molly pushed her cool round 


166 


A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. 


arm up around Nan’s neck and hugged her 
tightly. She pressed her sweet mouth to 
Nan’s hot cheek, flushed with pride and 
disappointment and said, ‘‘Oh, Nan, I do 
love you! I think you’re the nicest little 
girl in school.” 

The bell rang loudly and the little girls 
ran in, getting to their places just in time. 
After school Nan hung round till Matty 
Woods came up and then Nan said, “I 
guess you don’t care much about my sitting 
with you, do you, Matty?” 

“Yes, Nan, I do, and I’ll give you any- 
thing you want. Is there anything you’d 
like better than chocolates!” 

“No, I’d hke those, but Molly’ll feel so 
bad. I don’t like to change.” 

“Oh, well, suit yourself,” said Matty, 
but she was shrewd enough to see signs of 
irresolution in Nan’s face and bought the 
candy on her way home. 

Nan was cross that night at home. The 
daisies had all blown out of the fence cor- 
ners and Jack had scraped his leg in the 
wood pile so he was lame and Nan had to 
read to him. Her father said, “You’re 
cross to-night. Nan,” and sent her to bed 


A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. 


167 


half an hour before time. Nan tossed mid 
troubled dreams of large trees loaded with 
chocolate apples, while the fat figure of 
Matty Woods tried to twine like a serpent 
up the trunk. In the morning Nan was 
gloomy and her father’s banter did not 
make her jolly as it generally did. There 
was salt fish for breakfast, which she dis- 
liked, and the mush was burned, so she 
only ate a little bread and milk. The 
autumn air blew sharp across the prairie 
and Jack raced all the way, so she was quite 
hungry when she reached school with some 
hours between her and luncheon. At recess 
Matty Woods called her over to her desk 
and showed the box of chocolates tied with 
white paper and blue string. When Nan 
spent as much as five cents at a time on 
candy it was given to her in a paper bag 
striped with red and green, so the blue and 
white of Matty’s parcel seemed to her the 
summit of chaste elegance. She opened 
her own luncheon and found that Jack had 
meddled with her side of the basket and 
had eaten her cake. She ate her sand- 
wiches in melancholy silence, feeling that 
everything conspired to drive her to in- 


1G8 


A LOX OF CHOCOLATES. 


iquity. Presently Miss Green came into the 
school-room and sat down at her desk to 
look over some examination paper. 

“What is the matter, Nan! you look dole- 
ful.” 

“I don’t know, Miss Green. I’m tired.” 

Matty came in and sat down by her. 
“Nan,” she whispered, “don’t you want 
the chocolates?” 

Nan looked hungrily toward the white 
and blue parcel which showed through the 
open iron work at the end of Matty’s desk. 
“Miss Green, may Nan sit with me?” 

“Yes, Matty, if you do not talk.” 

Matty put the opened package into Nan’s 
greedy little hand and rapidly moved all 
Nan’s books and pencils into the other desk. 
When Molly came upstairs and found her 
desk empty, she thought, with an affection- 
ate qualm, “poor Nan must have gone home 
sick”; but when she turned around and 
saw her sitting with Matty, she could not 
repress a painful flush. Then her sweet, 
unsuspicious soul made excuses for Nan and 
hoped for her return the next day. But 
when morning came, there were more pack- 
ages of sweeties in Matty’s desk, and day 


A BOX OP CHOCOLATES. 


169 


by day Nau’s appetite, growing depraved 
by the unnatural food, held her firmly 
bound to the base of supplies. She was no 
longer the general favorite and queen of 
the playground, and when one day Matty 
Woods did not come to school, and Nan 
having nothing to eat, wanted to play, she 
found herself treated coldly, while Molly 
was petted by all. Nan was ashamed to 
speak to Molly, and walked past with ap- 
parent dignity but with secret remorse eat- 
ing her heart. Nan walked home alone 
that day and did some hard thinking. ‘‘I'm 
horrid! " she said, and thus expressed the 
vague feelings of self-disgust which an older 
girl might have clothed in phrases, till she 
had made herself feel like a martyr instead 
of a malefactor. Nan asked her mother if 
she might go a little way out on the prairie. 
The pur-air-a, as tlie country people called 
it, was quite safe, there were never any 
tramps nor snakes, only little rabbits ras- 
tling under the bushes, or the soft “Bob 
White” of a quail. Twined into thick nat- 
ural harbors were luxuriant vines of wild 
fox-grapes, and Nan climbed into one and 
swung to and fro, while she nibbled at the 


170 


A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. 


sour dark clusters. The sourness tasted 
good to her, after the satiety of sweets, just 
as the repentance began to feel good to her 
little tired heart. A bird came and perched 
very close to her and picked at the grapes, 
not flying away as she swung. He looked 
at her with bright, confldingeyes, and some- 
how reminded her of Molly, that is, Molly 
in the old days, before the pain at her little 
heart had made her head droop and her 
eyes sad. Soon Nan began to cry, and she 
cried hard for a long time ; then she dried 
her eyes and ran home, picking a bunch of 
ox-eyed daisies for the supper-table. 

The next morning she was very early at 
school, and as soon as Miss Green came. 
Nan said shyly, “Miss Green, may I sit with 
Molly again 

“Yes, certainly. Nan; what a fickle little 
body you are! ” 

Nan laughed shamefacedly and moved her 
books. When Molly came in with the dis- 
pirited air she had worn since Nan’s deser- 
tion, her round cheeks flushed and her sweet 
mouth broke into forgiving smiles when she 
saw Nan. 

“Molly, may I sit with you?” 


A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. 


171 


‘‘Oh, Nan! isn’t Matty coming back!” 

“I don’t know. I s’pose so, but I want 
to sit with you, anyhow.” 

The sun shone brighter that day, the plain 
luncheon tasted good to Nan, better tlian 
the dainties of Egyptian bondage, even the 
mysteries of mental arithmetic seemed less 
obscure. After school Molly went home 
with Nan, and Mrs. Spencer sent Jack to 
ask if she might stay all night. The next 
morning Nan and Molly ran smiling into 
the school-yard arm in arm and found all 
the others talking excitedly together. 

“Oh! have you heard?” cried Josie 
Ehinehart. 

“The awfullest news!” shrieked little 
Milly Ward with more emphasis than 
grammar. 

“No”, cried Nan and Molly in concert. 

“The reason Mattie Woods ain’t coming 
to school no more is ’cause she’s been awful 
wicked! She stole the money for all those 
goodies out of her father’s till. The people 
used to come in for milk and he dropped 
the money in without counting.” 

“My little brother saw her,” said Milly 
Ward, her voice hushed in horror, “and 
told her paw!” 


172 


A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. 


‘^Weren’t you nice eating all those things, 
Nan?” sneered Ella Brown. Nan’s arm 
trembled inside Molly’s, and a big tear 
splashed down on her spelling-book. 

‘‘Come, Nan,” said Molly sweetly, and 
drew her away. 

“Molly”, said Nan amid her tears. I’m 
going to give you my big doll.” 

“Oh! no. Nan,” cried Molly, “I don’t 
want anything. I love you. Nan. I think 
you’re the nicest girl in town.” 


NORA’S BLOCKADE RUNNING. 

‘‘I remember, I remember, the house 
where I was born,’’ chanted Nora Challoner, 
sweetly, but with a tremulous voice, while 
a little hand dashed away two big tears that 
had rolled up under her curly eye-lashes. 
“But it’s no use remembering,” she added, 
sorrowfully, as she looked around her.- In 
front of her was a beautiful little stream, 
running down from the high grounds of 
Taloosa Springs towards the . lowland of 
Mississippi. Behind her was a little white 
painted building with the Greek columns, 
and other eccentricities of architecture that 
were common to the Southern States before 
the war. It had manifestly been built for 
a church, but as Nora looked at it, she saw 
smoke curling from its chimneys; there 
were red curtains at the windows; children’s 
toys scattered around the porch, and many 
signs that the sometime deserted meeting- 
house had been transformed by various 
make-shifts into a dwelling house. Nora 
looked ruefully at the whole scene with a 
( 173 ) 


174 ngka’s blockade kunning. 

homesick expression, and then took up her 
school books again for fear her older brother 
would call her to recite unprepared lessons. 

It was the second year since the terrible 
Civil War had burst over the country. 
Nora^s own home was a large plantation in 
Southwest Missouri, in the rich table-land 
of the Ozarks. General Halleck’s troops 
had made that region too turbulent for little 
children, so their mother had sent Nora and 
her little sisters to ‘‘The Oaks”, their older 
brother John’s manor house in Mississippi. 
She herself remained in Missouri to be near 
the Confederate army in which her other 
sons were fighting. Her busy brain and 
hands found many ways of helping the 
Confederate troops, and of showing her love 
for their cause. 

John Challoner had been terribly wounded 
in his first engagement, and had been carried 
home to “The Oaks” shortly before the 
levees of the Mississippi had been cut, and 
the whole country flooded with the great 
Father of Waters. “The Oaks” stood on 
high ground, so that there was no danger 
of its being washed away, but the whole 
family were taken ill with malarial fever 


Nora’s blockade running. 175 

which ran riot through the inundated lands. 
So they closed the old manor house, and fled 
to Taloosa Springs, with family, negroes 
and stock, fearing that the fever would 
cany everything away. 

There were no houses at the Springs, for 
the place had been deserted since the begin- 
ning of the war, and the few houses had 
been destroyed by a fire, excepting an old 
meeting house which stood apart from the 
others. The Challoners took possession of 
the old church, and made a strange but 
comfortable home of it by throwing up par- 
titions to divide it into rooms. Here they 
stayed all summer, feeling as if they were 
living in a perpetual picnic, especially on 
bright days when they had their meals 
served in the old porch. The Ionic columns 
of the porch were thickly twined with Vir- 
ginia creeper and trumpet vine, which 
screened it softly, and lovely little humming 
birds darted in and out, or bright little 
paroquets played hide and seek. In the thick 
oak and hickory groves the negroes built 
shanties for themselves. Down below the 
groves was tire quaintest of old graveyards, 
where no one had been buried for forty 


176 noka’s blockade running. 

years. The grave-stones were all laid flat 
on top of the graves, “to keep the dead 
people all nice and warm,’’ said little Bess. 
The graveyard was a sunny tangle of wild 
flowers, and over one corner spread a gi’eat 
Cucumber-tree, — loveliest of the beautiful 
Magnolia family. Nora could not tell 
whether she loved it best in May, covered 
with its snowy-cupped blooms, or later 
when the odd little fruit, like tiny cucum- 
bers, hung upon it. 

Every day, when Nora had recited her 
own lessons to her brother, who would not 
allow her to lose her education entirely, she 
in turn tried to teach her little sisters. 

Into the graveyard Nora led the little ones 
to recite their lessons, since they had a 
theory, not borne out by facts, that they 
were more solemn in the graveyard. 

“Tell me about Elijah, Bonny Bess,” 
said Nora, with a school-teacher’s face of 
dignity. 

“Elijah poured lots of buckets of water 
on the dead oxes, and then went to heaven 
in a windmill,” answered Bess in triumph. 

“ ’t wasn’t a windmill, Bess, ’twas a 
whirligig,” corrected Nell scornfully. 


noka’s blockade running. 177 

“Both wrong,” said Nora, firmly, and 
repeated the tale of Elijah correctly. 

“Now I’ll say my free table,” said Bess. 
“Free ones are free, 

Free twos are six, 

Free frees are eight.” 

“Don’t say free, Bess, say free,” urged 
Nell, who had the same difficulty as her little 
sister, though her pronunciation sounded 
correct to her own ears. Nora dismissed 
them quickly, and ran hastily along the 
banks of the stream, for her ear had caught 
a rhythmical, far-reaching drumming, that 
she thought was the noise of the rare Ivory- 
bill woodpecker, which she longed to see at 
close range. From tree to tree, on opposite 
sides of the stream, were laced back and 
forth the thick twining stems of the musca- 
dine, hung with its dark red fruit. Nora 
climbed into its tough arches and swung 
herself to the opposite side of the stream, 
down to the ground, and ran swiftly towards 
the tree whence the sound came. Just as 
she reached it, the bird spied her and darted 
away. Nora followed into the woods, some- 
times almost near enough to touch it, and 
forgetful of everything but the fun of the 
12 


178 NORA’S BLOCKADE RUNNING. 

chase. She was perfectly fearless at all 
times, and had grown even reckless since 
they had lived up in the hills, far away from 
any people but their own negroes, or other 
refugees like themselves. 

After a while Nora came to her senses, 
and realized that she was lost. The woods 
were denser than any she had wandered in 
before. In trying first one open passage, 
and then another, she lost sight of the 
woodpecker, and finally came out suddenly 
on the banks of a dark bayou, where her 
eye caught a glimpse of a tiny shanty. In 
the door she saiv a man dressed in rags, 
with a curious headgear of skins, and his 
beard hung down to his waist. All at once 
poor Nora remembered legends of a “wild 
man”, who lived in the woods, and her 
heart began to flutter violently in her breast. 
Then she roused her courage and spoke up 
bravely. 

“I think I’m lost. Can you tell me how 
to go home?” 

“That depends on whar’ you all lives,” 
said the man with a very jolly laugh for a 
wild man. 

“Why, of course, I forgot,” laughed Nora 


noea’s blockade running. 179 

ill her turn. ‘‘We’re living in an old 
church, because the water was all around 
our house. I came through the woods after 
a bird, and got lost before I knew it.” 

“What sort ’a bird?” queried the man, 
with sympathetic interest. 

“Such a pretty woodpecker,” answered 
Nora, “with the prettiest drum you ever 
heard. I wanted to catch it.” 

The man pushed the door of his shanty 
wide open and told Nora to look in. On a 
shelf nailed on the wall were dozens of 
stuffed birds, all the beautiful ones she had 
learned to know so well since living in the 
hills, and some others which she had never 
seen. There were rose-breasted gros beaks, 
ruby-crowned kinglets, and two or three of 
the woodpeckers. 

“You may have one, missy,” said the 
man, kindly, and took one down, putting 
it in her hand. Then, before she had had 
time to thank him, he filled a basket with 
the largest pecans Nora had ever seen, and 
took up his gun, as another man would take 
his cane, and said, “Come on, now, and I 
will show you the road home.” 

He led her out of the woods and along a 


180 noea’s blockade eunning. 

footpath which skirted them for a little way, 
and then found the side of the stream, 
which he followed with her till they could 
see from a distance the old broken weather- 
vane on the roof of the church. Then he 
bade Nora good-bye kindly, and she thanked 
him again warmly. She ran along the path 
till she came to the stream, and then swung 
herself over, as before, by the vine-arches. 
On the fence, looking down the valley road, 
sat little Nell, swinging her small fat legs 
vigorously. 

“Look dere, Nora, I fink I see our Muv- 
ver tummiuj’^ she said in her babyish drawl. 

“Poor little homesick pet,” thought Nora, 
pitifully, and gave her a hearty hug. Then 
she looked down the road, and saw a cloud 
of dust whirling rapidly between the trees. 
A white horse’s head appeared. “That 
looks like old Hickory,” cried Nora. 

’Tis old Hickory, and he’s dot my Muv- 
ver. I see her pettitoats,” persisted Nell, 
obstinately. 

Nora jumped up eagerly, and pulled Nell 
after her along the road. The old white 
horse stopped short as they came up to him, 
and a gay voice cried, “What! an attack of 


Nora’s blockade running. 181 

infantry just as I thought I was getting into 
safe quarters! ” 

“Oh!” screamed Nora, in her amaze- 
ment. “You dear, splendid Mother! Where 
did you come from?” 

“From Arkansas, dear,” said Mrs. Chal- 
loner, with the merry twinkle that even war 
could not chase from her beautiful eyes. 
She was as handsome at forty-five as she 
had been when she was married. The other 
children had rushed towards her, and the 
negroes came trooping up from the cabins 
to greet “Miss Bess”, as Mrs. Challoner 
was still called. 

“Laws-a-massy! Miss Bess, however did 
you make out gwine froo all de sojers?” 
questioned old Aunt Mirny. • 

“That’s easy enough, Mirny, for people 
who have friends on both sides,” said Mrs. 
Challoner. 

“Brave women have nothing to fear from 
brave men,” said John Challoner, looking 
admiringly at his mother. 

Then she told how she had longed to see 
her little ones so much that she had- begged 
a pass to leave Missouri from a kind Union 
officer; how she had met with kindness all 


182 noea’s blockade eunning. 

along the way, but had come very slowly 
because of the old age of her horse, the only 
one left on her plantation. “He was not 
good enough to mount a soldier on,’’ she 
said laughing, “or I should not have had 
him long. Now, children, do you think 
you have the pluck to go back with me? 
I cannot stay here with you, there is too 
much for me to do over the river.” 

“Oh, Mother!” cried Nora, “of course 
we’ll go with you. Brother John is very 
kind, but we want to go home. And the 
negroes want to go too. They say, ‘We ’se 
no use here, we ’se dess nothin’ but pore 
cohn-fiel’ niggahs’.” 

“I’m doin’ with you, muwer,” said Nell, 
stoutly, “if I hab’ to hang on old Hickory’s 
tail!” 

Mrs. Challoner laughed. “We can’t go 
to our own home, dears ; for they would not 
let me leave Missouri till I took out papers 
of exile, and promised not to return. But 
if you think you can stand hardship and 
hunger, I will try to take you back to your 
uncle Hunter’s plantation in Arkansas. 
I cannot stay here; for I must keep near 
the army to help your brothers.” 


noka’s blockade running. 183 

Though the children knew nothing of the 
meaning of the sort of “hardship and hun- 
ger”, of which their mother spoke, they did 
know what it meant to be left motherless, 
and so assented fervently to the proposal to 
go to Arkansas. Preparations were quickly 
made; for the tents and camping wagon 
were at hand, in which they had moved 
from “The Oaks”. All their baggage went 
in that, with old Aunt Mirny and her daugh- 
ter Giinny and the old coachman. Mirny's 
son, Joel, drove a liglit carriage with Mrs. 
Challoner and the children packed snugly 
in. They did not need to take provisions; 
for in those war times everyone who had 
anything shared it freely with any traveller, 
and one was sure of finding plenty of corn 
pone and chicken, even in the smallest 
cabins on the lonely roads. 

It was a slow and tiresome journey; for 
the bridges and causeways over the swollen 
bayous were all broken, and it was necessary 
to ride miles around to fords, where some- 
times the waters rose to the bed of the 
carriage. It took them eight days to reach 
the Mississippi, wdiich was very closely 
guarded by Federal gunboats, since it was 


184 Nora’s blockade running. 

less than two weeks after the fall of Vicks- 
burg. 

There were thick woods near the river 
banks, and in them the party camped out, 
while Nora took Joel with her to the house 
of an old acquaintance to make inquiries. 

“Why, Nora, child, how you have grown ! ” 
said Mrs. Bates, admiringly. “How old are 
you? And how much you look like your 
mother!” 

Nora was delighted to hear that, and said, 
smiling, that she was fifteen, then added, 
“Mother wants to know if you know of any 
boat we can get to take us across to Arcan- 
sas. I am afraid it will be difficult for us to 
find one.” 

“You are just in the nick of time. My 
neighbor Burton is moving to Texas, and 
will be glad to have your negroes to help 
him. I will tell him, and send him down 
to your camp, or will you come up here to 
stay with me?” 

“Oh, thank you, no,” saidNora. “Mother 
has no pass, and it might get you into 
trouble. But let us have something to eat, 
Mrs. Bates, and we’ll be ever so much 
obliged to you.” 


Nora’s blockade running. 185 

Mr. Burton came to the camp, and told 
them that he had a large wood-scow ready 
to go over the river with his last load, and 
that he would willingly take over their bag- 
gage with the stock and wagons. All the 
negroes except Joel went with the scow, 
and they were ordered to drive back into 
the woods on the Arkansas side, to wait till 
Mrs. Challoner and the others came. The 
clumsy scow made her journey safely, and 
was sent adrift down the river. Nora and 
Nell were standing on the banks, watching 
the aimless movements of the old scow, 
when they saw a Federal gunboat steam up 
near her. Then Nora’s sharp ears heard 
one of her officers call out, “Look there! 
Captain ! there’s a basket of fresh vegetables 
in that old tub. Looks as if some one has 
been crossing here! ” 

“Send a detachment to land to search the 
banks,” ordered the Captain. Nora turned 
and fled into the woods, Nell running after 
her. “Hide! Mother!” cried Nora, “the 
soldiers are coming!” And without another 
word her mother seized Bess, while Joel 
picked up Nell and the whole party plunged 
deep into tile thicket. But the searching 


186 Nora's blockade running, 

party came on the traces of the camp, and 
shortly after, a whimper from Bonnie Bess 
brought the fugitives’ hiding place to light. 

There was no need for questions. It was 
plain that a woman of Mrs. Challoner’s 
breeding would not spend days and nights 
in the woods, with little children, if there 
was nothing mysterious in the affair ; so the 
prisoners were marched down to the water 
and taken on board the gunboat. 

‘T am sorry. Madam, to give you this 
trouble,” said Captain Barry, very politely. 
“If you can account for yourself satisfac- 
torily, I shall be very glad to release you. 
Have you a pass^ I know that some one 
has been crossing the river about here.” 

“I have no pass,” said Mrs. Challoner, 
bravely, and then, ‘ 4t wasn’t we who crossed 
the river, for here we are yet.” 

“Nevertheless I must hold you respon- 
sible,” rejoined the Captain. “So I fear 
I must take you down the river to head- 
quarters.” 

Nora tried in vain to imitate her mother’s 
cheerful dignity, but often her tears fell fast 
as they were marched between files of sol- 
diers through the streets of the first town. 


noea’s blockade eunning. 187 

examined and cross-examined by the author- 
ities. Then, as nothing definite could be 
proven against them, they were taken down 
the river in a transport to the Federal head- 
quarters, examined before more authorities 
and thrown into a filthy prison for several 
days. They were not treated unkindly, but 
after much discomfort they wore returned 
to the point on the Mississippi banks where 
they had first been captured, and sent on 
shore with the words, “You understand, 
Mrs. Challoner, you are set free on condition 
that you stay in Mississippi, and you must 
not attempt to cross the river again. 

“Mother,’’ said Nora, when they were 
left alone, “what will poor Aunt Mirny do! ” 

“Wait, Nora, and see,” said her mother, 
with the old twinkle in her eye. “I have 
made no promises, and if I was anxious to 
go to Arkansas when we were all together 
at Taloosa, you may be sure I am de- 
termined to, now that Mirny and the others 
are waiting for us across the river.” 

They slept for two or three nights at Mrs. 
Bates’, till one morning Joel found an old 
skiff which with some patching proved 
strong enough to carry them. When mid- 


188 noea’s blockade eunning. 

night came, they crept cautiously down to 
the river and launched the skiff in the midst 
of a great clump of willows, which reached 
far out into the stream. Just as they were 
ready to start, Nora whispered, ‘‘A steamer 
is coming! ’’ 

The steamer was heavily loaded and 
moved very slowly, and as she came oppo- 
site the skiff’s hiding-place, the bright 
moonlight cast the black shadow of the 
steamer heavily on the water. 

‘‘Joel, pull into the shadow,” whispered 
Nora, “and they will not see us, till we can 
reach the bend of the river.” 

Mrs. Challoner nodded assent, and Joel 
pulled the little skiff from her point of shel- 
ter, right into the wake of her enemies. 
As they reached the river-bend, the moon 
fortunately went under a cloud, which les- 
sened their chance of detection, and soon 
they landed on a long, low sand-spit left by 
the falling of the river, with the high banks 
fringed with trees some distance away. 

“Fill the boat, quick, Joel, and sink her,” 
whispered Mrs. Challoner. Scarcely was 
this done, and all about to breathe again in 


noka’s blockade running. 189 

safety, when the sound of another boat’s 
paddle-wheels reached their ears. 

The moon burst forth again, pitilessly, in 
all the glory of a Southern autumn night, 
streaming down upon the little group of 
figures, sharply outlined against the white 
sandy shore. A great fear held them all 
helpless for an instant, it was dreadful to be 
discovered when so near to safety. 

Suddenly a thought struck Nora. 

‘‘Oh, lie down flat, all of you!” she whis- 
pered, and catching up her mother’s big 
grey blanket shawl, she spread it out to its 
full length, and drew it over the prostrate 
figures. It lay irregularly like a grey shadow 
on the sand-spit, and Nora crept under the 
edge of it, scarcely daring to breathe. 

The paddle-wheels came near, nearer, but 
if any one was watching the river, the dull 
shadow did not seem suspicious ; then the 
sound of the boat grew fainter and finally 
died away. 

Nora peeped out, and saw that the river 
was clear. “We are safe I come 1 ’ ’ she cried 
softly, and springing up led the way to the 
high banks, where they clambered up by 
the aid of roots and vines, soon reaching 


190 noka’s blockade bunning. 

the shelter of thick friendly trees, where 
they lay down and slept soundly for several 
hours, without other bed than the forest 
moss. 

Daylight broke, and the birds poured 
out their reveille. Nora was first awake, 
and slipped quietly away, on a little tour of 
discovery. She wandered a short way 
through the wood, carefully noting her 
directions, so as not to be lost. Then she 
caught sight of a little curl of smoke before 
her and then the faint gleam of a fire. She 
thought, ‘blow I can ask our way, and per- 
haps get some breakfast,” — but when she 
came up to the old negro woman who stood 
over the fire, she rushed forward with a 
scream of delight. “Aunt Mirny! are you 
all safe?” 

“Laws-a-massy ! Honey, wharfs yo’ Ma?” 

“Right back there. Aunty. Such a dread- 
ful time as weVe had!” 

“Deed, chile, I b’leebs yoh We all seed 
de sojers march yo’ off, and we all said 
we’d stay right ’round here till yo’ come.” 

A very joyful meeting followed when the 
faithful negroes welcomed their dear mis- 
tress to the camp, and before many hours 


Nora’s blockade running. 191 

the "whole party were on their way to the 
plantation of Mr. Hunter, where all would 
be welcome till quieter times came. But 
they all agreed that the most critical point 
in their blockade - running was the time 
Nora saved them by her strategy with a 
grey blanket shawl. 











APR 1 1904 




